CNMN
by Raalm
Summary: Camea Thystel is a first year student at Haven who has been put in charge of Team CNMN (Cinnamon). Follow Camea and her team through their four years at Haven Academy and the challenges they face from school, missions and more often then not, themselves.
1. Chapter 1 - Arrival

**A/N**

Welcome to CNMN. This is a story that I have been wanting to write for quite a while and finally have the time. That being said, my time is still rather limited by work and other stuff so chapters will be uploaded when I have the chance. I will try my best to not let it be too long between chapters. Any feedback and comments is more than welcome so please review and let me know what you think.

 **RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth**

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 **Chapter 1 – Arrival**

 **Camea Thystel**

Camea stepped off of the airship with her eyes closed and took in a deep breath, the smell of trees filling her senses, split only by the slight hint of freshwater that seemed to permeate the entirety of Mistrals main city due to the roaring waterfall that cascaded down the cities central mountain. Taking one last breath, Camea opened her eyes and took in the sight that she had dreamed of since she was six years old and had first seen the school sitting atop its mountain.

The sight was different to what she had expected but it was still breathtaking. Large buildings littered the ground in a seemingly random way, each with multiple levels, though they all shared the same pattern. Dark brown wood formed the first level giving it a traditional Mistralian feel and each level after was pristine white stone. Gently sloped, blue tiled roofs stuck out the the buildings to separate the levels from each other and it seemed that the top of each roof served as a balcony for the floor that proceeded it.

Despite the sheer amount of buildings strewn everywhere, there was a surprising amount of open space. Large courtyards stood before each building, some containing tables and chairs, others simply bare except for the light-posts that ran around their perimeter and the bushes and flowers that gave even the plain courtyards a tranquil feel.

Two building in the distance stood out from the rest as while they shared the same pattern, they were the only two building with spires. Camea knew that one of these held the fabled Cross Continental Transmit System that Atlas had developed after The Great War to allow instant communication between kingdoms but she could only guess what the other building was for.

Camea felt a smile glue itself to her face as she adjusted her dupatta and stepped forward towards her new school. Blown away by the scenery, she had barely noticed the students that had already begun to fill the campus. Many of the students seemed to be wearing their uniforms of faded black but that was to expected as school had technically started a week ago for second years and above. Looking around Camea was easily able to pick out the first year students due to all of them still being in what she had to guess was their combat clothes owing to initiation being later that day. A vast majority of the students were obviously from Mistral due to their attire that screamed flair, Mistral had always been well known for being the fashion capitol of the world, but she could see a few who were dressed more plainly which suggested maybe Vale or Vacuo. Oddly enough she saw no-one who seemed to fit the typical Atlas style.

However, of all the students, Camea's eyes were immediately drawn to one man. He sat on one of the many benches scattered around the area sharpening a greatsword with a red tip that was easily over forty inches long and looked like it weighted at least twice her body weight. He wore a grey leather jacket with a single dull silver pauldron on his right shoulder. His hands were cover with a pair of gauntlets of similar colour to the pauldron. Black jeans covered his legs and his feet were clad in heavy leather boots. His most striking feature however was his horns, or more specifically horn as one looked like it had been snapped off, which stood out from a head of shoulder length black hair that faded to such a silver that it made the hair seem like it had been dipped in a bowl of said liquid metal. Camea could not help but feel a shiver of fear run through her while looking at him and knew immediately that even though she considered herself an above average fighter, this was a man she did not ever want to fight. She was broken from her trance as he raised his head, pale red eyes locked onto hers for a brief second before he give her a smirk, after which he stood and, with one hand, easily swung the massive sword over his shoulder, where it seemed to clip to his back, before turning and walking off. As he walked away, Camea thought she could make out a gear track running up the side of the sword and some triggers on the hilt.

Shaking her head, Camea shook the fearsome man from her mind and continued forward towards the main building in the distance, initiation was only thirty minutes way and she did not want to be late.

 **Nick Eldrien**

Nick felt a prickle in the back of his neck. Anyone growing up in the wilds of Anima knew immediately what that meant. He was being watched. The gaze was coming from straight in from on him, roughly ten meters away. Raising his head, he found dark green eyes of the raven-haired, tanned brown girl watching him immediately. He took in the rest of her appearance using his peripheral vision and saw that she was wearing what he had seen to be the traditional attire of the families that lived in the upper levels of Mistral, though only partially. She was wearing a long sleeved purple top was called a kameez if he recalled correctly, not that he really cared but you could never be sure what information could be useful in the long run. Each sleeve seemed to have a zip running from her back to her wrists where they connected to a simple pare of leather bracers. The sleeves didn't hang open so he guessed there was fabric holding them together under the zip but since there was no skin showing he didn't really feel the need to look any longer. Purple jeans, a couple of shades lighter than her top, covered her legs and her feet were covered in open toes shoes with a slight heel. The only thing he was really interested to see was he weapon but a shawl that he couldn't remember the name of was covering them and all he could make out was the round edge of a shield.

His interest quickly faded but she seemed to like looking at him so he flashed her a quick smirk then decided to make his way to the main hall. He stood up and sheathed _Havoc Track_ , his extremely appropriately name greatsword, and took off.

 **Majorella Atmos**

Majorella hopped off of the airship, careful to sidestep the raven-haired girl who had foolishly decided to stop right in front of the exit, and looked at her new school. She was certainly a long way from Vacuo. Gone were the sand dunes and flaky building. Now all the stood before was pristine buildings a peaceful garden. Maybe she had made a mistake in choosing Haven over Shade. The school seemed like it was going to be far more dull than Shade at least. However, as quickly as those thoughts entered her head they vanished, to be replace by thoughts of Mistral's reputation for arts and even the rumoured wild parties that took place frequently around the lower levels of Mistral. With those thoughts to keep her pleased she took off towards what she knew from extensive reading to be Haven Academies main building, where orientation wait take place very soon.

The walk didn't take very long, especially since she had practically jogged the entire way, and soon she was pushing open one of the many doors the the main building. The first sight to greet her was a marble statue of a woman in a long flowing dress holding up a balcony which over looked the floor below. Behind her was a metal sculpture of the sun, its rays reaching out behind her. Majorella didn't know who this woman was but the effect was spectacular. Taking her eyes away from the statue, she looked around at the large space that she was now stood in, it was easily big enough for a large scale fight. In two of the corners were two staircases that lead to a second floor, the edge of which overlooked the large area below. Doors lined the walls on the second floor leading to room that Majorella guess were either classrooms or offices. Rather unsettlingly, what had to be a hundred students in black uniforms leant on the edge looking down with what seemed to be excitement.

On the other side of the room opposite the entryway was an area that looked to be raised at least three meters off the ground. A pair of railless stairs, one on either side, lead up to the raised area. Stood on the edge of this platform was five teachers. Most looked normal but one seemed to be having a rather heated conversation with himself. The small platform that the statue was holding up extended slightly from the area and was protected by a railing. By the way the teachers were stood on either side of this area, she guessed that the platform was where the headmaster would be standing very shortly.

The walls surrounding the room confused Majorella, between the pillars that held up the second floor walkway hung multicoloured banners, ten banners in total. _Maybe they are to do with initiation_ , she thought to herself. As she looked between the banners looking for some clue as to what initiation would be, she spotted a girl wearing a long pink duster.

Her coat was not the only thing about her that was pink, so was her top, though I was mostly covered by a dark brown leather chest piece as were her arms, actually the only thing she was wearing that wasn't pink or made of leather was her jeans which were a pleasant blue, blue being Majorellas favourite colour meant she automatically liked them. _Pink, blue and leather? This girl obvious likes to party_ , Majorella thought to herself. Less than a second later, she decided she was obligated to say hello to a fellow party girl; after all, she may know where some good gigs are.

Started started walking towards the pink and notice a few point she had missed from across the room. First of which was the two guns at her side. Revolvers from what she could guess but the cylinders looked a little on the big side. Custom made maybe? Second was that the knuckles of her gauntlets were raised a bit, metal lined? Obviously done to increase her striking power. The last thing Majorella noticed as she came to stop in front of her was that the girls orange eyes that seemed to burn as she tossed her copper red hair out of her face with a flick of her head.

"Heya," Majorella said the girls eyes met hers. "I'm Majorella Atmos, from Vacuo, how about you?"

 **Nadea Heart**

Nadia looked at the girl approaching her, her style was... odd for the Mistral climate. _Must be from one of the other kingdoms_ , Nadea thought to herself. It was the only real reason she could think of for a Girl to be wearing a pair of white shorts and a dark blue top with one side extended to cover most of her right thigh. Her hair was blue with carefully placed white patches to give it the look of a slightly cloudy sky in spring. The effect was actually rather pleasant to looks at, spring being her favourite time of year. The blue haired girl quickly came to a stop in front of her and seemed to give her one last look-over before smiling and introducing herself.

"Heya," the girl said while looking like she had just found her new best friend. "I'm Majorella Atmos, from Vacuo, how about you?"

Nadea took one last look at the girl before replying. "Nadea Heart," she decided to reply. No-one needed to know where she was from.

"Cool," Majorella replied, seemingly not even noticing that Nadea hadn't given her previous location. "So have you seen the banners? D'ya think they have something to do with initiation?"

"Most likely,"Nadea replied, having already figured out what the banner represented. "All schools separate their students into teams of four, the student list has forty people so I'm guessing the ten banners have something to do with deciding our teams."

"Jeez," the girl replied. "You're pretty smart ain't ya."

Nadea noticed a flash of disappointment go through the girls eyes as she spoke. Deciding to ignore this, she nodded to the girls back where her she could see a Bo staff peaking over Majorellas shoulder. "Nice staff."

The girl perk up quickly and reached behind her to pull it out. Nadeas first impression was right, the staff was indeed very nice. The long piece of metal was painted black with a pattern that looked like blue ribbons spiralled is way up its length. What look like a small cylinder was attached around the middle and reminded Nadea of a worms clitellum.

"Thanks, _Emission_ is my baby," she replied as she gave the staff a quick twirl. "I like your guns too, are those cylinders custom made?"

"More like personalized," Nadea said while pulling out the double barrelled revolver on her left name _Seek_ and giving it a spin. "Ten shot cylinder, a little bulkier but I like the extra shots."

Majorella looked like she was about to reply but a cough cut her off. Both of them looked up at the raised platform to see a new figure standing between the other teachers. He wore a brown waistcoat with a white shirt underneath and grey dress pant. His hair and beard were mostly grey from age but though a few streaks of brown remained. Nadea swore she could see a tail swishing between his legs.

"Hello students, my name is Professor Leonardo Lionheart," He paused for a brief moment to look at all the students. "And welcome to your initiation."


	2. Chapter 2 - The Claiming

**A/N**

 **So before this chapter starts, I just want to say that these first few chapters are going to be a little short since they are mainly for setting up the characters, their combat abilities and the themes the story will cover but from chapter 5 they will be at least double the length. Also combat is very tough for me to write and tiring for people to read in massive chunks so I have split this chapter into 2 parts. I intend to publish the next part on Saturday and try my best to keep that as the upload date but please don't be mad if I miss it by a day or two.**

 **Also I want to say a massive thank you to those who followed and special thanks to RandomwriterJ for the kind words in his review. Please let me know how this chapter reads because I am rather nervous about this one. Anyways enough rambling, please enjoy.**

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 **Chapter 2 – The Claiming**

 **Camea Thystel**

"Undoubtedly you have seen the ten banners lining this room," Professor Lionheart continued. "These banners are your goals for today."

Camea watched as the people around her moved slightly closer the the walls in a attempt to get there first. She however stayed where she was, knowing that it would not be that simple. Professor Lionheart had clearly noticed the shifting too, and so had the other teachers, who were already scribbling something on their clipboards, except one who was arguing with himself.

"However," Professor Lionheart continued. "These are not your only objectives. We call this test The Claiming, your goal is to claim one opponent. Touching the flag while touching your opponent will make them your partner for the next four years. They must not go willingly however. Drag them kicking and screaming or simply knock them out and drag their unconscious body to the flag, it's your choice. Oh and this fight is also a free for all."

Noise immediately kicked up at that. People were suddenly whispering to themselves and the shuffling of their feet gave away that they were trying to get into close proximity of the person they wanted.

"Well, looks like you all get to clean up after me," said the man with the sword that Camea had seen outside earlier. "I always wanted a bunch of servants," he added with a wink to the nearest student.

The man clearly did not see the trouble he was in, it was obvious that multiple people had already set their sights on him, Camea would consider him to be lucky if he only had five of the students in the room rushing him. Further more, no-one seemed to be realising exactly what this task meant in the long run. The first person to touch a banner would be at the most disadvantage. In fact, holding out until all ten flag had a pair gave you the pick of who you wanted your team to be.

"Now you will be graded on your performance here by these fine teachers," Professor Lionheart pressed on as he pointed to the five teachers behind him. "And your grade will determine the leader of each team. You now have five minutes to prepare, the test starts when the gong sounds."

The room tensed considerable as everyone activates their auras and tried to decide not only who they could take on in a fight and win, but who else would be going for that person too. Camea had already decided that going for the guy with a sword would be far more trouble than it was worth and began looking around for a more suitable choice as she removed her dupatta and wrapped it twice round her waist before tying it off. After assessing the crowd, her eyes landed on a girl wearing a pink duster holding a revolver. Deciding that the girls ranged style would suit her own close combat style perfectly, she made her mind up. Revolver girl was her target.

The next few seconds were an explosion of movement and sound. A gong sounded throughout the room and the first person to move was the man with the sword, his movement was quick and fluid as he slammed the back of his metal covered hand into the boy closest too him. The resulting forced sent the poor boy soaring across the room and all eyes followed him as he slammed hard into the wall. Fortunately he stood back up, albeit on shaky legs, but once he was on hit feet, all hell broke loose in the room.

Her target had barely moved. Instead she had simply drawn another gun into her right hand. Camea gave her shoulders a shrug backwards to released a pair of round shields with bladed rims, they slid down the zip tricks on each arm and locked into place on her bracers. Not wanting to waste any more time, Camea set off at a run towards her target.

Her reaction was instant, in the blink of an eye Camea was staring at a twin barrel revolver pointed directly and her and in the next blink the gun fired with the sound of a small explosion. She raised her left shield, Shriek, to block the shot and felt an impact far too strong to be a dust round. Camea knew this feeling. These were old fashion, pure metal bullets; and from the force of the impact she knew they were big. Very big. The girl however had not seemed fazed by what should have been an immense amount of recoil to shoot with one hand, in fact her hand had barely moved. Camea rolled to the side as she saw the girl finger twitch again and narrowly avoided the second shot before attempting to continuing her rush. However she was met yet again by the barrels of the girl left gun. This time she had just enough time to see blue trail behind the bullet as she blocked it again. This time the impact was much less but a shock travelled up her left arm. _Dust in the left, metal in the right._ , she realised. Blocking would do her no good in the fight. The sheer impact strength of the right gun would put a stop to her charge instantly and the left would easily chip away at her aura.

Deciding to change tactics, Camea began her advance once more and as expected the girls right gun fired off but this time she was ready. Camea raised _Shriek_ at an angle this time, allowing the bullet to glance off the shield instead of taking the full impact. Her charge slowed slightly but didn't stop her completely and in no time she found herself within two meters of the girl. _Close enough_.

Camea swing her right arm forward sending her second shield, _Shrill_ , soaring through the air and forcing the girl to sidestep. That was her first mistake. Camea tugged her forearm back towards her chest, yanking at the wire that kept _Shrill_ connected to her wrist. This caused the shield to return on a slightly altered path, just enough to clip the girls left shoulder. Pink aura flashed for a second, showing that it was indeed a good hit. But now that she was in close, she could get to work.

She felt _Shrill_ clip itself back into position and lashed out with a wide swing that the girl barely avoided only for Camea to connect a quick jab from _Shriek_. Not wanting to lose the momentum she had gained, she brought _Shrill_ up into an uppercut that the girl dodged with a small backwards hop. Camea couldn't allow her to get any distance so she stepped forward in response. Suddenly she felt something glide along her stomach, and a shimmer of purple aura flowed up her arms to signify damage being taken. It didn't take her long to find the culprit. A blade had at some point extended between the barrels of the girls left gun and she had taken the opportunity of Cameas advance to get in a quick swipe.

The girl seized upon the advantage her surprise attack had presented and unleashed a flurry of quick slashes punctuated with occasional shots that put Camea on the defensive. Camea managed to block most of them with her shields,only taking a few light hits, until finally she saw and opening and struck. She once again swing her fist up in an uppercut but this time she was aiming for the girls left wrist. She felt the rim of the shield strike its target this time, forcing the girls arm to swing out to the side and giving Camea the opportunity to slam _Shrill_ shield into the girls chest causing her to stagger backwards a couple of steps. This time Camea recognised the feint and didn't play into it, instead she threw her shield once more at the girl face and was pleased to see it strike the girls nose making her really stagger this time. Camea prepared to rush in to capitalize but found herself bouncing off thin air as she got within a few feet of the girl.

On closer inspection, it wasn't thin air at all, in fact the air around her target seemed to have taken on a pink tinge, almost identical in colour to the girls aura. She struck out once with _Shrill_ to test the bubble that was forming around the girl only for her shield to bounce off of it. She could do nothing as the girl regained her composure and reloaded her guns of the few rounds she had fired during their clash. Once she had finished reloading, the pink bubble began to shrink until it came to a rest, hugging the girls skin, though oddly it did not seem to cover the girls right hand. She gave her guns a quick spin, releasing the blades for both guns this time and took a step towards Camea. At the same time a shout sounded to their right and an almost defeated looking male student charged the girl, obviously he had seen her semblance and liked it enough to make his move.

Camea prepared to fight both of the targets but any worry about the boy was soon removed as the girls eyes turned to him. She raised her right hand with a smile and fired. The sound was telling. She had fired both rounds at once this time rather than the single shots she had been firing at Camea. Both bullets hit the boys shoulder and caused him to do a rather nasty looking backflip. He landed face down on the floor and Camea knew he would not be getting up again until the test was over and someone had claimed him. Her attention turned back to Camea and once again continued her advance.

"The names Nadea," she called out, her voice carried over the sounds of fighting. "And I wouldn't mind you as a partner either but I'm afraid it will be me who claims you." And with that she rushed in.

The girl was fast, even faster than before and Camea only just had enough time to raise her shield as a knee slammed into it. She felt an arm wrap around the back of her neck as Nadea used her momentum to drag both of them to the ground. Camea fell hard onto her back, Nadea hovering over her on a knee preparing to bring her blade down in a vicious plunge. Moving her heard to the side, Camea brought _Shrill_ up in an attempt to strike the girls head and dislodge her but only met Nadeas right hand which grabbed the rim on the shield. _When did she holster her gun_? _In the fall_? Cameo shook her head, that didn't matter now as Nadeas hand was in a place she could work with. She stretched out her fingers and grabbed the lever on the inside of the shield and pulled.

The shield groaned to life as the rim retracted to reveal a rough chain with small blades littering its length. With one more pull of the lever, the groaning turning into a bellow as the chain began to rotate at high speed. The girls hand was thrown off the shield with an outburst of sparks and Camea used the chance to pull her left shield into position and ignited the gravity dust crystal embedded in its centre. The crystal threw Nadea up into the the air. Camea launched herself into a standing position and shoved _Shrill_ up into the girls abdomen. She let out a grunt in response and brought her elbows down to knock the shield out of position. It worked enough for her to land safely a few meter away where she quickly stood and fired off two pairs of shots from her right gun in quick succession, Camea deflected one pair but the other pair hit her directly in the chest. Her body erupted in pain as while her aura had blocked the damage, the sheer force made her bones rattle and the breath leave her body. She knew her aura was dangerously low now and that this fight was almost at its end. From the breathless look on Nadea's face, she knew it too.

Camea took a quick breath and steeled herself for one final assault. Nadea was only a couple of meters from one of the banners, if she could just get her there, then she would win. She pulled the lever on _Shriek_ , revealing its own chain. She stepped forward, to be met with another pair of bullets flying straight at her face. She sidestepped them and swung her shield once again at the girls right arm in an attempt to smack it aside. The attempt was successful as the girls speed had slowed significantly due to the damage she had taken. Camea followed up with a left hook, but the girl managed to back-step out of it exactly as Camea had planned. She transitioned her left hook into a shoulder slam with just enough force to push the girl into the wall. She rushed forward, receiving a slash to the face from the girls left blade in the process, and pinned her against the wall with her shoulder while snatching the banner with her free hand. She had succeeded.

"Claimed," She whispered to the girl before falling to her knees in exhaustion. "And I'm Camea."

 **Nadea Heart**

She had lost. And she hurt. All. Over. When she had seen the girl look at her before the gong rang she hadn't expected such a fight. In fact she hadn't even expected the girl to get close to her. She was usually quite good at keeping people at bay but those retractable shields had taken her by surprise. Most surprisingly though she had taken multiple dust rounds and two simultaneous shots from _Destroy_. Not many people could take the pain from two .50 caliber magnum rounds to the chest and remain standing, even with aura. Nonetheless, she had extremely enjoyed the fight and even been forced to use her semblance. She sighed and allowed herself to finally slide down the wall as she looked around to see what other teams had been formed, so far there were only two banners left that did not have a pair attached to them.

"Good fight," she said to the girl who had named herself Camea. "Partner."


	3. Chapter 3 - The Claiming (Part 2)

**A/N**

 **I will keep this short. Here's the second, part on a Saturday as promised. I will try to keep this as my update day from now on. It may not be every week, but I will always keep it to a Saturday. Anyways, I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think.**

 **RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth**

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 **Chapter 3 – The Claiming (part 2)**

 **Majorella Atmos**

Majorella felt a little insulted as the boy she had been fighting off for the past minute turned and ran at Nadea, only to be shot down instantly but she didn't have long to think about it. She saw a club swing towards her head in her peripheral and barely manage to avoid it. With a quick twirl of her staff, _Emission_ , she struck the club on the head to make it continue along its missed trajectory and knocking the girl who swung it off balance. She brought her staff up and pulled on the dust release mechanism, causing a small fireball to strike the girl in the chest and send her stumbling backwards only to be tackled by another girl wearing knuckle dusters.

Majorella had yet to find someone she was interested in being partners with. Nadea had been the only person so far that interested her but from the brief glimpses she had seen of the fight between her and the tanned shield fighter, she knew wouldn't stand a chance of emerging on top against either of them.

Her thoughts were cut short yet again as a boy came flying at her, backwards. She stepped out of the way and looked at what had sent him flying to see the man who had made a joke during Professor Lionhearts speech standing in the exact same place as when the test had begun. Two people were currently charging him but he easily swiped them aside with a large greatsword. Now he was interesting. But could she take him? She knew the answer would normally be no but with multiple people attacking him she may actually stand a chance. Especially since he seemed very reluctant to move. Was it for a reason? _Guess I should find out_.

She ran at him and smacked the bottom of her staff into the ground, causing the gravity crystal embedded into it to launch her into the air. As she came close she activated her semblance to increase her weight. She extended her legs as her increased weight made her plummet straight at the boys back. Her feet struck him square between the shoulders and the weight behind it was enough to make him stumble forward a few steps. He responded quickly with a spinning one handed slash of his sword. She landed with just enough time the duck his swing but now he was facing her.

Suddenly his sword dropped as if he could longer hold it up with one hand. He sneered as he use both his hands to raise his sword. A hooded student ran past Majorella and thrust a shortsword at the boy who parried it easily and delivered a clean slash to the students chest. But the student only fell back by a meter. That didn't make sense, she had seen him send a student flying across the room with a single punch. Then it clicked. His semblance. _He's only strong when he stands in place_. She had to keep him moving.

She was proved right as he removed his left hand from his sword and once again held it like it was nothing, before thrusting it at the student who had attacked him. The red tip of his sword connected then exploded with enough force to send the student back another few meters. When the fire cleared, a blue tip emerged in its place. She had to attack now while there was an opening. She rushed forward, once again dodging under his blade as he brought it up into a rising slash, and jammed the gravity crystal into the boys chest. He was pushed back and the student he had blew up earlier rushed in and jammed her sword into his side. She didn't seem to be able to recognise false openings though since the boy brought his right hand down. The edge of his sword crashed onto her back and flattened her to the floor. Once he landed, his sword dropped again. _I can't slow down_.

Majorella span her staff and pulled the trigger block sending a fireball at the boy that hit him in the chest with just enough force to knock him off balance. His still didn't have both hands on his sword she she took the opening and moved in thrusting the top of he staff into his chest. She felt it bounced slightly on his aura and transferred her motion into a low spin, bringing the staff around to strike the side of his left knee. It buckled and she heard the clang of metal against stone before she felt a large hand grab the back of her neck. She had no time to react as a metal cover fist slammed into the back of her head and made her vision blur for a brief second. The fist slammed into her head again as she struggled to think of a way to get out of his grip. _Think, think_.

Majorella didn't know what happened next but as the boy brought his right arm back down for another punch, something forced it back and his left hand lost its grip on her neck. She saw to balls of metal drop to the floor as she pulled her head free and rolled backwards. As she got to her feet, she twisted the trigger block and slowly pulled it back. A spray of white dust flowed out the top of her staff and quickly began to solidify into a sharp point of ice. She pulled the staff back and quickly slammed the trigger block in the opposite direction, trapping the icicle and turning her staff into a spear. Majorella thrust it forward, allowing the length of smooth metal to slip through her fingers until she caught it near the end. Taking a step forward, she gave the recovering boy a hard poke with the newly formed spearhead.

He laughed as he shrugged the strike off and seized his weapon off the ground with both hands. He swung it hard in a sideways slash but she dodged backward out of his reach and leaned in to hit him with another poke. She knew the strike would not knock him off balance however and rolled to the side as he transitioned into a downwards strike that jammed the sword into the concrete. She poked him again and this time the icicle shattered, returning her staff back to normal. She pulled back the trigger block and a small ball of fire launched the remaining chuck of ice at the boys face. He moved his head to the side to dodge it and laughed again.

"I'm finally having fun," he said with a sneer.

He ripped the sword from the ground and swung up from left to right. Majorella ducked the blade for the third time but he was ready and took a step forward to slam his shoulder into her. She stumbled backward and was unable to dodge properly as he ripped his sword back down through the air. The force was enough to elicit a a cry of pain from Majorella. He followed up with a kick that sent her reeling but as she fell backward she jabbed him once again with the gravity crystal to push him back. _I can't let him power up_.

Majorella watched the boy regain his footing and crack his neck as he started forward, clearly having given up on try to remain stationary. She activated her semblance once more, this time make herself lighter, and kicked herself up into a handstand just in time to avoid another downward strike from the boy. She allowed her weight to return to normal and twisted her body to deliver a hard kick to the side of the boys head before flipping herself back to her feet. She wobbled for a second as the after-effects of her semblance screwed up her balance. He noticed and pointed his sword at her. The tip once again exploded sending a small mass of electricity surging towards her. She dispelled it with a twirl of her staff but still felt a small amount arc up her arms.

Majorella gave her staff another twirl, bringing it to position facing the boy and pulled back the trigger block all the way back. A torrent of flame erupted from the end and engulfed the boy. He ignored it fired once again,she didn't see what colour the tip of his sword was this time and was caught off guard by a sudden gale of wind that blew her backwards. The fighting space was now rather empty with only a few fighters remaining.

"Well its been fun," The boy all but yelled across the room. "But since your the only interesting person left, I guess its time to end this." Then he did something that surprised her. He walked over the the banner that Nadea and the tanned shield wielder were standing near and ripped it off the wall.

 _Why did I not think of that_ , she thought to herself as he wrapped the banner around his hand. She knew that either way the team was decided now. All she could do was try and get a hand on the banner and touch him before he grabbed her. He smiled and took a fake step forward. He was teasing her now. He knew he had every advantage. He did it again and this time she responded with a small fireball aimed straight at his face. He blocked it with his sword and swung out in one fluid motion. _Why is he swinging? He's too far away_. Her answer came as she watched his sword extent a good twenty inches, not enough to hit her but just enough to clip the end of her staff. The force knocked Majorella off balance. She used her semblance to remain standing but he was too close now, she couldn't do anything as his right hand grabbed her t-shirt and pulled her close.

"Not bad, short shorts," he said with a grin.


	4. Chapter 4 - New Friends

**A/N**

 **Again just a quick note saying that these will be at the end of a chapter, I don't want you to have to scroll through these to get to the chapter. The rest of the chapters will be longer from this point on so please enjoy.**

 **RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth**

* * *

 **Chapter 4 – New Friends**

 **Nick Eldrien**

Nick laid back on his bed and thought back to the naming ceremony that had taken place only a hour ago. Lionheart had called them onto the platform and announced them to the school as 'Team Cinnamon'. Given his fondness for cinnamon itself it wasn't a name that bothered him too much but what did bother him was that Camea had been selected as the leader. While he had no real desire to be team leader himself, he certainly wasn't happy about having to take orders from some high society, Mistral snob.

He hadn't met many residents of upper mistral but the ones he had met had all been the same. Stuck up, self important and with no idea of how the world really worked outside of the kingdoms. All someone had to do was look at their failed attempt at building their own kingdom to see how little they understood. So far his leaders only saving grace was that Camea was at least a capable fighter, going from what he had seen during the claiming.

His own partner Majorella, who was currently sat on the end of his bed, was slightly more interesting, he could tell that she was somewhat of a party girl but he couldn't deny she was a good fighter. She also seemed to have figured out his semblance rather quickly.

The fourth member of their team, Nadea, was probably the worst of the lot and he had no idea why. There was just something about the girl that put him on edge. It could have been the coat she wore that made her look like piece of rhubarb, a food he wasn't particularly keen on, or maybe it was the fact that he had only seen her weapons for a brief moment as she had replaced the blade in one of her guns but he could already see a huge design flaw.

"So, I think we should probably start off by introducing ourselves" Camea began as she stood up from her bed and looked at each of them. _Oh boy, this is gunna be fun_ , Nick though to himself. " I'm Camea Thystel, I was raised here in Mistral and learned to fight at Sanctum."

Nick sighed loudly and closed his eyes as his own partner jumped up and shook Camea's hand.

"Nice to meet ya Camea," she replied in an accent he didn't recognise. "I'm Majorella, though most people just call me Ella, and I used to live in Vacuo." _Ella_ , he noted to himself. At least he no longer had to deal with that stupid name.

He felt a shift from where he knew Nadea was sitting as he guessed she was about to talk. Of there was anything else to listen to he probably would have tuned her out but today was not his lucky day apparently.

"Nadea Heart," she said simply. This apparently wasn't enough for Camea.

"Nice to meet you officially Nadea," she said in a genuinely pleasant tone. "Where are you from?"

"Just a small village outside of Mistral," she responded with a hesitancy to her voice. But now his interest was peaked. "I doubt you've heard of it."

"Try me," Nick challenged and even opened one of his eyes to look at her. There wasn't many villages he didn't know of.

Now she really did seem hesitant but she was clearly refusing to drop her gaze from his own. After a couple of second deliberation, she finally answered.

"Russle."

He didn't even try to restrain the scoff that forced its way out of his mouth.

"Something funny?" It was her turn to challenge him. _This could be fun_ , he thought to himself .

"That place is a shithole," he replied, eager to see her reaction. He wasn't disappointed as he watched a flash of anger pulsed through her eyes.

"Oh really? And where are you from that's so great?" she replied with an edge to her voice that made him chuckle.

 _This really is going to be_ fun, he thought to himself. He watched her closely and answered her.

"Lardon."

Her reaction was instant. A scowl appeared on her face and her lips pulled up into a sneer.

"And you call my home a shithole," She all but laughed back. "Doesn't your entire village smell like piss."

"Common misconception, we're close to the ocean so it smells rather clean," he countered with a grin, knowing it would only infuriate her more. "You should come by sometime, you might enjoy a place where people actually bath."

She looked like she was about to reply but Camea had clearly decided the argument had gone on long enough.

"OK," she all but shouted. "Enough arguing."

Nick just grunted in response and closed his eyes once again and chuckled to himself as he heard Nadea say something about him and his village being arseholes. It was a term Nick had often heard people use to describe him but it had never bothered him. Outside the kingdoms, being nice and playing friends got people killed and he wasn't going to be one of those. He was who he was, everyone else just had to deal with it.

"Sorry am I missing something?" Ella asked, the usual happiness of her voice was slightly absent.

Nadea didn't seem to be willing to answer do with a sigh, Nick sat up and looked at his partner before answering.

"Russle and Lardon are considered bandit villages," he stated simply.

Nick watched as Camea looked between himself and Nadea, her face clearly showing her confusion.

"I don't understand," she said to herself. "Why would Haven allow bandits to attend?"

"Please," Nadea scoffed in dismissal. "If they stopped everyone who had connections to unsavoury things from attending Haven there would be barely anyone here."

"Besides," Nadea continued, "My village only attacks convoys because we need the stuff to survive. We don't attack other villages and never kill. Lardon is the same from what I understand."

Nick just grunted in response. He didn't know why Nadea was bothering to explain it to these people who wouldn't understand. They had lived their whole lives in protected cities and had likely only encountered small Grimm in controlled conditions. Resources were scarce outside the kingdoms and that lead to lowered moral, argument caused by hunger when there wasn't enough food to go around attracted Grimm and deterring those Grimm cost precious resources. It was a painful cycle to watch. Even more so to live through.

"Oh well," Ella chirped out. Even Nick opened his eye to look at her."I mean, I come from Vacuo, it's not exactly the most law abiding kingdom. Plus my dad runs a dust shop and more than likely caters to a few criminals."

This appeared to do nothing to abate Camea confusion. Instead she simply shook her head and sat down on her bed. The confusion the girl was showing was finally starting to get to him.

"Stop acting like this is all so surprising to you," he snapped. "You probably fucking grew up around people who took part in the war and unless I'm mistaken, Mistral was on the side of turning everyone into emotionless puppets."

Her reaction to this was more visceral as she flinched away. He knew right then that everything he had just said was correct. And given her reaction he was willing to bet that her family had taken part too.

"See," he sneered. "You high society snobs are no better than us."

"OK Nick," Ella stepped in. "Enough of this. We are a team for the next four years of our lives so why don't we just stop judging each other for stuff none of us have any control over or the stuff we do out of necessity."

"Whatever," grunted as he got up from his bed. "I'm going for some food."

"I'm hungry too so I'll come as well," Ella said. "Do you two want anything?"

Nick didn't bother to wait for her.


	5. Chapter 5 - First Day

**Chapter 5 – First Day**

 **Nadea Heart**

Nadea awoke to the soft click of a drawer opening and a strong desire to do harm to whoever had interrupted the best night of sleep she had had in years went through her. She slowly opened her eyes and was met with a dark room. Only a faint amount of light was pushing its was through the thin curtain. Someone was stood to one side of the room searching through one of the chest of drawers.

"Camea?" Nadea tiredly called out once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the figure became clearer. "What are you doing?"

"So-Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you" she replied with a stifled yawn. "I'm Just getting ready for my morning run. Would you care to join me?"

"Fuck it," Nadea answered as a couple seconds thought. She knew she was not going to get back to sleep any time soon. "Why not."

She pulled her covers off and hissed as chilled air rushed in to assault her legs. She pulled her suitcase up from the side of her bed and pulled out a pair of jogging bottom. a loose t-shirt and some underwear before starting to get undressed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Camea quickly turn away and continue rummaging through her draws.

"You might wanna get used to nudity," Nadea chuckled to herself as she pulled on her clothes. "Something tells me Nick isn't going to care who see his stuff."

She looked over to Nick's bed and wasn't surprised to find it empty. He hadn't returned after the argument last night. Even Ella had no idea where he was, all she knew was that he had got some food from the cafeteria and left.

"Where do you think he spent last night?" Camea asked as she pulled out her own clothes.

"In a six foot ditch hopefully," Nadea replied, only slightly serious. Camea shot her a sad look and sighed.

"Less than a day and I'm already unable to keep our team together," she mumbled to herself.

A surge of sympathy rushed through Nadea as she finished putting on her clothes and stood up. She walked over to her partner and putt a hand on her shoulder. "Its your first day and no-one expects you to be perfect so don't that that ass get you down. Besides, I'm sure he'll turn up eventually."

Camea simply gave a nod and made her way over to the bathroom, obviously not at all eager to get undressed in front of her. She emerged five minutes later and they left for their run.

A jog, would have been a more apt description despite doing some races towards the end that Nadea won every time. In a little over an hour they had managed to circle the school twice and now the sky was a pleasant pale sky. A breeze blew gently across the courtyard that they were currently stood in offer them some relief from the heat they had build up from their work out. Nadea would have enjoy going for a bit longer but her stomach was begging for some food so her and Camea decided to call it and head to the cafeteria.

They arrived to find the cafeteria to be almost empty, most of the student body obviously trying to get as much sleep as they could. She order a simple bowl of oatmeal and a banana from the service counter and sat down at one of the many tables that filled the room. Camea joined her shortly after with her own food. Nadea was comfortable with the silence the eating offered but It wasn't long before her partner broke it.

"Do you mind if I ask about that glove?" She asked hesitantly. "I noticed that you slept in it last night but took the other off."

Nadea looked down at the glove and bracer that covered her right hand and forearm. It had become such a familiar sight so her that Nadea had forgotten she even did that. She deliberated on maybe just ignoring the question but since they shared a dorm room now, Camea was likely go to find out eventually.

"My arm was crushed in an accident about three years ago," she replied. "The prosthetic isn't really the prettiest thing so I like to keep it covered. Avoid unnecessary attention ya'know."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she offered.

"It's fine," Nadea reassured her. She put down her spoon and began to unbuckle her bracer. "Honestly its just a little unsettling to look at constantly."

Once she had undone all the straps she slide her bracer off and removed her glove. As she pulled of her glove she heard Camea give a small gasp. The prosthetic wasn't like the newer models that Atlas had begun to showcase. It had no real casing and looked more like something you would see in their new Atlesian knight-90 androids. There was no palm, instead thin metal fingers riddled with joints and connectors lead straight into the wrist. The wrist itself was a series of springs designed to reduced recoil. More metal rod filled with wires made up the missing part of her forearm, arranged in a cylindrical pattern to at least give it a slight resemblance to the shape of a real arm. All of the rods fed into a cap over the stump of her real arm that she knew housed all of the more complicated stuff she didn't understand.

"Wow!" Camea exclaimed as she reached out to touch it. Nadea allowed her to. "Did you make this yourself?" she asked as she traced the fingers.

"No way," Nadea lightly scoffed in response. "A couple of months after the accident, an Atlesian scientist was visiting Mistral and my parents uhhh..." Nadea paused as she thought about the correct word to use. "Commandeered his services on his way back."

"You mean they kidnapped him?" Camea replied instantly. Nadea could feel the unease in her voice.

"Technically, yes," Nadea admitted. "But he was a strange one, he never really seemed like he didn't want to be there. In fact he seemed rather glad at the chance to have a test subject."

"That still doesn't make it right," her partner fired back.

"I know that," Nadea shot right back.

After Nick and Ella had left last night, Camea hadn't really said too much on the bandit matter. Instead she has gone around unpacking her stuff until she had gone too bed. Nadea knew that it wasn't the easiest thing to accept so she left her too it while she did some maintenance on her guns. However it seemed that her partner was willing to talk about it now.

"I just don't understand how you could attack people," she started, there was clear judgement in her voice but no animosity, only confusion.

"Have you ever been outside the walls of Mistrals controlled territory?"Nadea asked, keeping her voice level. Her partner shook her head in response. "Then I wouldn't expect you to understand. When people are starving we have no choice, we only do it out of necessity."

"But doesn't the Mistral council distribute supplies to the outer villages?" Camea questioned.

"They do. Every three months" she chuckled. "But the further out the village is from the main city, the less they get. We got two crates of dust last month to last us the quarter; and they were not big crates."

"That doesn't make sense," She mumbled to herself in an even more confused voice before turning back to Nadea. "Surely they would give less to the closer villages since we can protect them easier?"

This time Nadea laughed bitterly.

"If only there were more people like you on the council," she laughed bitterly. "From what I understand, they give more to the closer villages so that they are better prepared and can call on them is Mistral is ever attacked."

"That's, unfair." Camea spoke with the same expression she had last night when Nick had talked about Mistral's role the great war.

"Now you're starting to see the problem," Nadea said in a plain voice. "The mistral council prioritize themselves over everyone else and wandering traders charge at least twice the amount something would normally cost."

"Still, I cannot imagine attacking anyone who doesn't deserve it," Camea shook her head as she talked. The topic clearly causing her distress.

"That's a good thing," Nadea admitted. "That's why I'm here at Haven, to put that behind me. I'll always defend our actions as necessary but I still want to help people. Its fine if you don't understand it but please, just done judge me for it."

Camea went quiet for a few moment before replying.

"I'll try my best not to," she nodded. "But I still don't agree with it."

"That's fine," Nadea replied. "Neither do it."

They finished the rest of their breakfast in silence and made their way back to the dorm room to get ready for class. A fully dressed Ella greeted them with a smile as they walked through the door. Fortunately, there was still no sign of Nick.

"Morning Ella," Nadea said as she grabbed her uniform which she had placed on her bedside table the night before and made her way to the bathroom attached to their room.

She showered and dressed quickly since she did not want to make Camea wait to long. Once she left the bathroom and her partner rushed past her, presumably in an attempt to get as long as she could under the warm water. She sat down at one of the four desks in the room and checked the clock above the door. They had almost an hour before class started

"So what class do we have first?" Ella asked as she sat down on the edge of the desk.

"Dust Application with Doctor Robert Crimson I believe?" Nadea responded while removing the cap to her arm to check it. In the three years she had worn it, it had never failed to feel weird after a shower. "Should be fun for you since you said your dad runs a dust shop."

"Not really," Ella sighed. "Fire, ice and gravity is about all I'm good with."

"Well I'm guessing you will know more than Nick," she replied.

"Please don't start that again," Ella quickly said. "But I take it you two didn't see him while you were out."

"Nope."

Nadea noticed that the smile dropped from Ella's face for a split second as she stood up and walked over to her bed to lay down. She remained silent for the remainder of the time that Camea was in the shower, at which point they had to leave for class which started in ten minutes.

With two minutes to spare, they walked into the classroom and found Nick with his feet up on the long tables at the back. If Nadea had her way she would have sat on the other side of the classroom from him but Camea was insistent on the team sitting together so instead she chose to sit as far away as she could, with both Camea and Ella between him and her. Just as the finished taking their seats, the teacher walked in and if Nadea had to use one word to describe his appearance, it would be defeated.

She immediate recognised him as the teacher who had seemingly been arguing with himself during initiation. He looked no more than forty but his dark red hair was already falling out in places and what remained was quickly on its way. Facial hair grew in random patches and his eye seemed bloodshot in a very unnerving way. A black suit covered his body and must have looked rather grand at one point in time but was now covered in rips and cuts. The pockets hung down from the seams and the left arm looked as if it had been ripped away to reveal a white shirt beneath it..

"We-Welcome class, to Dust Application," he started in a wavering voice. "I am D-Doctor Robert Crimson."

He hadn't appeared to have looked at the class even once.

"In this class you will learn how to use dust more effectively and GET YOUR FEET OFF THE TABLE YOU ARROGANT LITTLE SWINE," the words erupted from him with such forced that it made the whole classroom jump.

His gaze was directed straight at Nick and for the briefest of moments, Nadea felt his presence swell to make her feel two feet tall. Apparently, even Nick had noticed it since he decided to do as instructed and took his feet off the desk.

"Th-Thank you young man," he stammered out. "I- I apologize for the outburst."

Nadea heard him talking to himself yet again as he turned around to face the blackboard and could of sworn he was berating someone named Louis.

"Now since this is your first class, I would like to get a feel for how much each of you already know," he continued, his voice seemingly more confident now as he picked up a stack of papers and began handing portions of it to the front row to pass back. "You will have thirty minutes to answer these questions and then we will use the remainder of the class time to go through the answers."

Nadea took one of the questions sheets from Camea and glanced at it to see twenty questions, each harder than the next..In fact, the last two questions were so complicated that Nadea could barely understand what the questions even meant.

"Your time begins now," Doctor Crimson said and hit a timer that was resting on his desk.

Nadea found the first ten questions rather simply and answered them with twenty minutes remaining but they quickly became more and more difficult. However, when the timer went off she felt confident that she had done rather well. She looked to her side to see both Camea and Ella hurriedly finishing up an answer but Nick was already leant back on his chair and looked like he had been that way for a couple of minutes.

After the test was done, Doctor Crimson ordered everyone to swap their paper with the person next to them and began to go through the answers one by one. Any doubt that his attire had given her was soon removed as he went into great detail on every question but still kept everything he was talking about easy to understand. Once they had gone through all the questions, she and Camea handed each other their sheets back to each other. _Eighty percent, not bad_ , Nadea thought to herself. A gong sounded through the classroom signalling the end of class.

"OK, place your sheets on my desk as you leave please," Doctor Crimson said as people began to pack up their stuff.

"So how did you two do on the test?" Ella asked as the walked out of the classroom and made their way to Grimm Studies.

"Not bad, only got 3 wrong," Camea answered. "How did you do?"

"Seventy percent, better than I though I would do." Ella said proudly. "What about you Nads."

"Nadea," she replied shortly. She had never liked nicknames for herself. "And eighty. So how did you do Nick? Don't worry we wont judge."

She couldn't help but take the jab at him and had hoped for at least some kind of comeback; however none came. She looked for any reaction on his face at all but found that he wasn't even with them. Both of her teammates seemed to notice this too and they all stopped to look for him. It didn't take long. He was still back at the classroom door talking to a girl she guessed was a second year. And she was laughing.

"Hey Nick, we're gunna be late," Camea called out to him only to receive a middle finger in response. She simply sighed and shrugged and set back off towards their next class. "So how did he do?" she asked Ella.

"He actually got all of them right," she replied.

"What!" Nadea felt the word slip out in her surprise.

"Yeah and he even finished a few minutes before the timer went off," Ella shrugged.

"Well maybe he takes things more seriously than he shows," Camea reasoned.

"He's still an ass," Nadea countered and this time they didn't argue with her.

The rest of the day passed in much of the same fashion. Teachers either jumped straight into a lesson or gave them question sheets to assess their abilities. The lessons themselves were far more complicated than Nadea expected and by the end of the day she was just happy to collapse onto her bed.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **I apologise for the long break, work has been rather busy and I was preparing for RTX London so I really did not have time to write anything but I am back to writing and uploads should be back to every one/two weeks.**


	6. Chapter 6 - Understanding

**Chapter 6 – Understanding**

 **Camea Thystel**

Camea felt the table she was studying at shift as Majorella jumped up and sat on it, sending a small pile of book tumbling all over the place. She gave a small sigh and started to fix the pile while Majorella muttered her apology. It had only been two weeks since lessons had begun and the teachers had already given out so much homework that she had spent a majority of her time in the library.

"So what you working on?" Majorella asked as she pulled one of the books closer to read the title.

"Dust homework." Camea replied shortly as she finished fixing the pile. "Do you want to do it together?"

"No thanks, Nick already helped me with mine," she answered. "I just came to see if you want anything to eat? Dinner is about to end."

"Oh," Camea noted the slight hint of worry in Majorella's voice. "No thank you, I really want to finish this up."

"Cams, you've been in here all day," she pushed. "Have you even eaten since breakfast."

Now that Camea thought about it, she hadn't. The monstrous amount of homework had been all she had focused on.

"I will eat once I'm done with this." Camea sighed. "Wait, how did you get Nick to help you? When I asked him he said no because I annoy him."

"I dunno, but don't change the subject," Majorella replied forcefully. "Now I am getting you something so you may as well choose."

"Fine," she conceded. "I'll just have a salad or something."

"Chicken and pasta salad, got it," Majorella said happily and hopped off the table. "I'll bring it to the dorm."

"Wait, I only said salad," Camea started to argue as the girl walked away. She ignored her and was soon out of site.

With a sigh she turned back to her work. The essay only took another twenty minutes to finish but she felt the pangs of hunger cause her stomach to lurch in pain while she wrote the final few lines. With all of her homework done, she packed away her things and set off towards the dorm, where the promise of food awaited her.

She took the elevator to her dorm room on the third floor and heard shouting the moment she stepped out. She didn't need to guess what room it was coming from.

"...With _Destroy_?" were the first words she could make out as she approached the door. She opened to be greeted by the sight of Nadea pointing both of her guns directly at Nicks face. If he was at all concerned, he didn't show it. Majorella was laying on her bed, seemingly amused by the whole situation.

"I was looking at how shitty the design was," Nick replied with a sneer. "You do realise that it's the reason why you have to change your fucking blades so often."

"Touch my weapons again, and I seriously will shoot you," Nadea said through clenched teeth as she holstered the guns.

"Whatever bubblefuck, like you could even hit me," Nick merely shrugged and made his way to the bathroom.

Camea sighed once again. She found herself doing that a lot more recently, though she felt she had good reason to. Nick and Nadea had been at each others throats since day one and never seemed to miss a chance to insult one another. Granted this wasn't much different to how Nick treated everyone else, with the exception of Majorella who he seemed to treat with at least a little more civility; but Nadea usually kept to herself unless people spoke to her first, and even then she was still pretty pleasant to talk to.

She didn't really have the energy to get involved to day so instead she walked over to her corner of the room and picked up a plate covered in tinfoil and a fork. Her stomach growled at the sight of food as she pulled the covering off and began to eat. _By Oum this is glorious_ , she thought to herself.

"So what are your plans for the rest of the night Cams?" Majorella asked while twirling her staff above her.

"No idea, probably just go down to the dojo and train for a bit." Camea replied between mouthfuls.

Majorella stopped spinning her staff and used it to push herself up into a sitting position.

"You could do that," she began with a mischievous look in her eye. "Or you could come with me and Nadea to a party down in the third years building."

"Wait, who said I'm going?" Nadea interjected before Camea could reply.

"I did," Majorella waved her off.

"Well why does Cams get a choice but I don't?" Nadea asked indignantly

"She doesn't," she smiled happily. "I merely asked out of courtesy."

"I'm really not a party person Majorella," Camea replied.

"Well tough, we are all going to celebrate making it through our first two weeks at Haven," Majorella's voice was tinged with eagerness. "Think of it as team building," she added.

Camea could hardly argue with that since the team definitely needed some building. However, she did not think forcing Nick and Nadea to hang out together was going to end very well.

"Did someone say party?" Nick emerged from the bathroom. "I'm down."

"There you go Ella, take Nick," Nadea offered. "Get him out of our hair for a night."

"Jeez, are you still mad I touched your gun?" he replied.

"Can you blame me?"Nadea defended. "You've blown up the workshop twice already."

"Only one of those was my fault," Nick argued. "To be honest though, you should come to the party. Maybe you will find a guy to pull that stick out of your arse, and if you're really lucky he may replace it with something else."

Camea saw that even Majorella blushed at that comment.

"Oh go fuck yourself Dickolas," Nadea replied angrily.

"I would but why deprive someone else the pleasure of doing it for me," Nick winked.

"Enough," Camea said tiredly, having finally had enough of the argument. "Majorella's right, we need more team building so we are all going."

Nadea groaned but said no more on the matter and began to get ready. Camea returned to her food. She had no idea why they were constantly arguing and even less of an idea on how to stop it. _Maybe they are just adjusting the things_ , she thought to herself. _I'm sure it will stop eventually_.

"Well shit, is little miss Mistral here finally gunna do something fun?" Nick taunted.

Camea didn't bother to respond as she knew it would only encourage him. Instead she finished her food and set the plate on her table to be taken down in the morning.

"So when does it start?" Camea asked Majorella.

"In about thirty minutes so we should probably leave in like, an hour," Majorella shrugged.

"But then we would be late," Camea pointed out only to be met with laughter from Nick. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," he merely smirked. "You're right, you should get going now, we'll catch up."

"Nick, don't be an ass," Majorella scolded him before turning back to Camea. "Rule one of parties, always show up at least half an hour late or you will be the only one there for quite some time."

That sounded like utter nonsense to Camea but she decided to take Majorella on her word since she had more experience.

"Any other rules I should know?" Camea asked.

"Other than never let your drink outta your sight?" Majorella replied. "Not really."

Camea resigned herself to a night of loud music and began to get ready, not looking forward to the headache she knew she would most likely have tomorrow. Camea had never been to a party before, at least not this type of party, and therefore had no idea what to expect other than loud music and a lot of people. Nevertheless, she finished getting ready and an hour later they were approaching the doors to the third year dorms.

As they walked through the doors, a big, burly boy greeted Majorella and she smiled back. She was already fairly popular at school and given how many people greeted her, she clearly knew a lot of the people here. Camea on the other hand knew almost no-one, at least she couldn't see anyone she knew.

"Well, I will see you losers later," Nick said and walked off into the crowd towards a girl that Camea recognised as the one he had been talking to after their first class.

Camea saw Majorella wave to someone at the other end of the room and then suddenly grab both her and Nadea by the hand. She began to pull them over to the area which she had waved at at Camea soon found herself at a makeshift bar. It was being monitored by two third years that Camea had seen around school but never talked to.

"Ella," called out one of the third years behind the bar, a girl with reddish-purple hair and soft blue eyes called out. She leaned over the wooden table to hug Camea's teammate. "I'm glad you made it. You wanna sit down?"

The girl snapped her fingers at a trio that were sitting at the end of the makeshift bar and ordered them to move.

"So who is your lovely friend here?" she girl added with a warm smile.

Camea was glad for her dark complexion as she felt herself blush slightly under the girls gaze.

"Calm down Maggy," Majorella laughed as she took her seat. "This our team leader Camea, and the girl in the pink is Nadea."

"Lovely to meet you both," Maggy offered her hand to each in turn, though Camea felt she clung a little longer to her own. "I'm Magenta but please call me Maggy."

"Nice to meet you too," Camea returned the sentiment, receiving another smile.

"So what can I get you both to drink?" She asked as she pulled a bottle of orange liquid out from under the table and slid it over to Majorella.

"Don't suppose you have any alcohol?" Nadea replied in a bored tone. "Might make this night more bearable."

"Sure," Maggy smirked. "I'll just need to see you're ID and some lien." Nadea groaned and instead asked for a soda. Maggy laughed and slid one to her.

"What about you... Camea was it?" she inquired.

"Yes, and just a water thanks," she mumbled back.

If Maggy thought it was strange for someone to ask for water at a party, she gave no indication. Instead she simply nodded and sent her fellow third year go get a bottle from the fridge.

"By the way, what's with the makeshift bar?" Majorella asked. This was a question that Camea had been thinking of asking since the moment she saw it but for some reason she was having a little trouble talking.

"Well technically, this is only for alcohol," Maggy answered. "Haven allows alcohol at approved events so long as there's a teacher present to oversee that no-one underage is drinking."

She pointed over he shoulder to something Camea couldn't see at first but after looking closer she saw a person sitting in a chair, covered in shadows. She recognised her as the history teacher, Miss Petunia and despite the fact she currently had her head deep in a book, Camea knew she was also watching every little thing that happened at the bar.

The after a couple of minutes, which she mainly spend listening to Majorella and Maggy talk since Nadea had already gone off on her own, the boy returned with her water. Soon after Majorella announce she was going to find Nick.

"When you find him, tell him if he comes near me at all tonight, I'm going to shove a glass bottle down his throat," Maggy called after her, receiving a cough from the teacher. "Sorry Miss Petunia."

"So Camea," she started with a warm smile. "How have you been finding Haven so far?"

It took her a seconds to find her voice but she finally spoke up.

"Honestly, its been exhausting," Camea eventually breathed out. Maggy let out a small, melodic laugh in response. "I don't suppose it gets any easier?"

"I'm afraid not," she replied, the fading chuckles of her laugh still present in her voice. "More like you get used to it."

"How did you get used to it?"

"It took time," she began. "When I was first announced as leader, I spent all my time looking up the best way to lead. I though if I did all my homework and came up with the best strategies then I would prove that the teachers were right to chose me. But eventually I learned that all the strategies in the world meant nothing if my teams couldn't trust or relate to me. So I started to lean on them a little more. It was only then that things started getting easier."

"Majorella talked to you didn't she?" Camea asked, suspicious that Maggy's description felt far too like her own to be coincidence.

"She was a little worried," Maggy admitted. "She says that you've been spending a lot of time in the library and forgetting to eat. Wanna talk about it to a fellow team leader?"

Camea took a moment to think about it. She had been pretty stressed all week and could really use someone to talk to but usually she only ever talked to her father. When she did talk to others about how she was feelings, Camea always felt like she was burdening them. Her father, however was always supportive, always listened and never complained. He was the type on man to drop everything in a heartbeat if she was having tough time and needed him. But her father wasn't here at Haven and this girl was offering her shoulder so after a the moment of hesitation, she decided it couldn't hurt to indulge a little.

"It's just that homework is all I feel I can do right now," Camea started. "We still have not won a a single team round in sparring class, Nick and Nadea are constantly arguing, Nick seems to hate me but won't tell me why and meanwhile I'm struggling to keep up with classes despite spending all my time studying yet Majorella is always ahead and even has time to get to know everyone. I just feel like I'm trying my hardest but I'm still constantly failing."

"Wanna know I secret?" Maggy asked, to which Camea nodded. "You probably are."

"That's what you call helpful?"

"More helpful than telling you a pretty lie," Maggy countered and pulled up a chair to sit down. "Look you are always going to fail eventually, I've been leading team Mahogany to two year now and even I still fail occasionally. All you can hope to do is learn from it and try your best to make sure its a long time before the next one."

She pointed to some students that Camea recognised as the previous owners of the seat she was now sat in.

"Take my team for example," she said, a hint of pride in her voice. "During those days when all I did was study strategies, I was adamant about using Cain, the one in the green, to specifically take out weaker opponents first. He uses a greataxe so it made sense to me to have him knocking out the weak then coming to help us."

She shook her head at the memory.

"But we kept losing because that isn't who HE is. Cain excels when he is surrounded because he doesn't have to limit his swings. When I learned this I came up with a new strategy that revolved around three of us surrounding the enemy team and pushing them towards him. Now we're the highest ranking combat team in our year."

Camea listened to the story and couldn't deny that she had been trying to use Nick in the same way Maggy had been using Cain.

"That very helpful for the losing thing but what about the rest?" Camea sighed.

Maggy took a moment to think before standing up and walking away. Camea had no idea what she was doing but five minutes later she returned with Nick, her hand like a vice around his arm. She arrived back at the table and practically threw him into the empty chair beside Camea.

"Ouch, you know you got a real dyke grip right?" He spat at Maggy. She didn't back down but instead got close up to him and smiled.

"Listen here you little prick," she said in a whisper that only the three of them could here. "Camea here is under the impression that you hate her and having talked with you, I'm sure you've been happy to let her believe it. But enough is enough. You're going to tell her what your problem is right now or I'm going to tell every girl in this room that Ella let slip your dick is smaller than your snapped horn. Understand?"

He let out a snort of irritation but didn't argue. Camea didn't blame him. The look in Maggy's eyes show that she was dead serious. However, the next moment she flashed a sweet smile her way and walked back off into the crowd after telling the boy behind the bar to cover her.

"Getting you're girlfriend to threaten me, not cool Cumea," Nick glared at her. Camea was about to correct him and ask him not to call her that again but she didn't get the chance. "Whatever, I don't care. Plus, I don't hate you, I hate were you come from."

"Why?" Camea replied, admittedly rather sheepishly.

"Seven year ago," he started with a sneer. "A group of people from Mistral came to my village. All high society twats just like you. They needed workers and were offering money for anyone who wanted to help them build their own town. 'Its going to be the start of a new kingdom' they said. So my father signed up."

Camea knew the kingdom that was talking about and knew where this was going to go. But she listened nonetheless.

"My father was good man, always spoke out against the things my village did. Always said there was another way. So he went off to help build that stupid town. But like I've said, your lot have gotten too comfortable in Mistral. They didn't understand the threat the Grimm pose and failed to provide proper security."

He took a moment to compose himself. When he finally began to speak again, his voice was filled with contempt.

"So the reason I can't stand to look at you is because every time I do, I see those who cost my father his life. I see my mother breaking down and crumbling to her knees when they brought his body back in a wooden crate and offered their useless condolence. I see how it affected my brother and the depression he's been struggling with ever since. All because your fucking people weren't happy with their mountainside homes."

Camea had nothing to say in response. She knew it wasn't fair that Nick treated her the way he did but if this way the reason why then it was certainly more understandable. If she had lost he father and had to look at someone who constantly reminded her of why everyday, she was sure she would grow to resent that person. Even if it wasn't their fault.

"There you go, does that make you feel better?" Nick sneered and walked away, no even bothering to wait for an answer.

It did not.

 **Later That Night**

The ping of her scroll pulled Camea from her thoughts. The party had ended for her hours ago and now she was laid on her bed thinking about the night. After Nick had told her his story, she hadn't really felt like staying at the party much longer. She had told her team that she didn't feel very well and was returning to the dorm. She had collapsed onto her bed the moment she walked in and that was where she had been for the past two hours.

It took a couple of seconds for Camea to feel like looking but she finally lifted herself up and looked at her scroll. She was surprised with the message she found on it.

' _Heyy Camea, I hope u don't mind but I got yr number from Ella, she told me u wer feeling ill, I no this was probably a lie and just want to say I'm sorry if I overstepped – Maggy x_ '

For some reason, despite everything that had been, and still was rushing through her mind, this simple message made her smile. She quickly typed back. ' _I don't mind at all, and you didn't. I just wanted to be alone for a while_.' Her scroll didn't take long to receive another message.

' _Well u have my number now if u ever need 2 talk_ '

' _I will keep that in mind, thank you.'_


	7. Chapter 7 - Training

**A/N**

 **Just a quick disclaimer, I am not an expert in polearms by any means.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7 - Training**

 **Majorella Atmos**

Majorella awoke to a loud bang and before she could even open her eyes, the sound of Nick's yelling filled the room. She turned over and opened her eyes. Instant regret filled her as the light in the room burned her retinas and made her already bad headache far worse. Being held back a year due to moving around so much had been a perk last nigh, since it meant she was allowed to drink, but now she considered it a hindrance. Especially with Maggy sneaking her more drinks than she assumed student were supposed to be allowed. With a groan she sat up to see what was going on.

"You're lucky my dust vials weren't in there," Nick was shouting at Nadea while he picked up what looked to be the extendable part of his sword. "You'd have blown up the fucking room."

From the looks of it, Nick was doing maintenance on his weapon as he did almost everyday and the bathroom door had knocked part of it on the floor when she left it. Majorella never failed to be impressed by the amount of parts that Nick's sword contained. The table he was working at was covered in small gears, latches and springs that he was cleaning while the bigger parts laid on his bed.

"Guys, I have a hangover," Majorella hissed before Nadea could respond. "Please shut up for one morning."

"Sorry Ella," Nadea said and threw Nick a dirty look.

Majorella would usually find a little pleasure from listening to them fight but every time either of them spoke this morning she just wanted to throw up.

She looked around the room as she stretched and saw that Camea wasn't in her bed. If she had to guess, she would say she had gone for her morning run. When Majorella had asked Maggy to talk to Camea, she had hoped it would help, but Camea had left the party early using a really poor excuse. On the bright side though, Maggy seemed to have taken an interest in Camea. Maggy was one of Majorella's older sisters best friends and she used to see her all the time until two years ago when she decided to attend Haven instead of Shade, the huntsmen academy in Vacuo. Maggy was the type of girl to flirt with almost anyone but rarely went out of her way to get a someone's number so the fact she had asked made Majorella a little giddy. Now she just had to find out if Camea was into girls.

She felt like her body was screaming at her as she pushed her way out of bed but she had to get up. The clock by her bed showed that she was due in the dojo in little under two hours. Her head pulsed with pain that made her feel even more sick as she leant down and grabbed some clothes from her drawer.

"So what do you two have planned for the day?" She asked her teammates.

"Workshop," Nick grunted while pulling the handle of his sword toward him and began to check the binding.

His answer didn't surprise her at all. If he wasn't in class or the dorm, you would almost always find him in the schools workshop working on something new.

"I've got a study session with Alyse and Ixia," Nadea replied as she gathered some of her books. "You?"

"Pretty sure I'm gunna be training all day, " She returned. "Just wish I could stay in bed though."

"Why don't you then?" Nick asked. "Its Sunday."

"I haven't been training as much as I would like lately, plus I told Silvic I would spar with him today." Nick laughed to himself when she said this. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, I just remember him _sparring_ with two other girls last week," He chuckled out, putting extra emphasis on the word sparring.

"Well he's not going to be doing anything more than sparring with me."

Nick simply shrugged and began to reassemble is sword.

She quickly disregarded his comment and went to take a quick shower. In less than fifteen minutes, she had _Emission_ in hand, a bag with a change of clothes and was ready to head down to breakfast for a quick bite to eat before going to the dojo. As she walked into the cafeteria, she saw Camea sitting at a table along in her running clothes. _One – nothing to me_ , Majorella thought to herself.

She didn't think her stomach could handle the usual bacon and eggs today so instead she grabbed a bowl of porridge and sat down opposite Camea, who was too busy typing on her scroll to notice her.

"Hey Cams," she announced, making the girl jump slightly. "Feeling better today?" Majorella felt it was only polite to ask, even though she knew the whole 'feeling sick' excuse was a lie.

"Better, thank you." _Did that count as a lie_? Majorella wasn't sure. "Do you know if Nick is going to the workshop today?"

"He said he was," she answered. "Why?"

"Well I realised that I have been trying not to deal with Nick since our team was formed but Maggy helped me see that's not what a leader does," Camea confessed. "He also told me some stuff last night that I really want to work on fixing, so figured a good first step would be asking him to help with my weapons."

"Help?" Majorella asked, slightly confused. "I've seen you take your shields apart and put them back together almost as much as I see Nick do it."

"Yes but that's because they're my weapons," she explained. "Plus, I've been thinking of adding some dust capabilities to _Shrill_ for some time now but I'm not so good with dust injection techniques whereas Nick is."

"Good luck with that," Majorella chuckled. "Last time I asked him to look at _Emission,_ I ended up wanting to strangle him." Camea just laughed at this. "Anyway I've heard enough of Nick for today, what did you think of Maggy?"

"She uhh... She was nice," Camea answered, her hand moving towards her scroll. "Like I said, she helped me figure out some stuff so please tell her thank you."

"Oh, she asked for you number last night," Majorella responded, a little disappointed that Maggy might not have reached out. "I thought she wanted to message you or something."

"She did," Camea corrected her. "I just don't want to bother her."

"I highly doubt she would mind," Majorella hinted. "But sure, I will tell her if I see her."

"OK, well I'm going to head down to the workshop," Camea sighed and got up to leave. "Looks like you are going to train so good luck."

"You'll need more luck than me," Majorella replied as her teammate walked away.

Now that she sat alone, she continued eating her porridge while thinking about the conversation she'd just had. She couldn't really tell if Camea was interested in Maggy or not. She seemed a little uncomfortable but that could have just been about spending time with Nick. Majorella hadn't been joking about wanting to strangle him. She finished up her food and put the bowl with the other dirty plates and set off for the dojo.

As she walked through the courtyards of Haven, she took a moment to admire the weather. It was something she did every time she walked through them. Back in Vacuo, she had become so used to being covered in a thin layer of sweat that most days she forgot it was even there. But here in Mistral, the weather was perfect. A gentle warmth seeped into every corner of the school while a cooling breeze blew across the grounds. It was weather she would have considered impossible even to exist before coming here and experiencing it herself. Much too soon however, she arrived at the dojo and stepped inside.

The dojo itself was the second largest building on campus. A large open space greeted her as she walked in, the floor made of dark brown wood with rubber mats placed a meter away from from each other. A glass ceiling gave the room plenty of light. Gym equipment from weight benches to running machines filled the room, though why anyone would use the running machines when the beautiful weather made running outside feel so amazing she didn't know, but options were nice she supposed. On either side of the room were five doors, each leading to a small, more personal training area and each one fitted with weapons and dummies for the students to use. Two doors also stood on the wall opposite the entry door, these led to bigger areas that were used for sparring matches and tournament style fights.

Fortunately the dojo was rather empty since, as Nick had said, it was Sunday and most student it seemed liked to sleep in or take the day off. The entry room was eerily silent since the few students that were there were busy either warming up or stretching their muscles after their training. Due to her hangover, she decided it would be wise to do her usual pre-training workout and instead chose to go straight into one of the rooms to begin her combat exercises.

Majorella entered the room and set the timer to alert her when ninety minutes had passed before she began to go through the same drills she had done since she was nine. The basics first because, despite being sure she could do them in her sleep, they were important. Doing these exercises also brought back fond memories for her. When she had first started to learn how to use a staff, her instructor had shown her how to hold the it and some basic moves to practice. The first was a front overhead strike. While now she could do if flawlessly, the first time she'd tried to quickly level the wooden pole on her shoulder parallel with the ground, she had accidentally smacked herself hard on the top of the head. She hadn't unlocked her aura at that point so even though she was still young,the force was enough to make her vision blur.

 _But those day are long gone_ , she thought to herself as she began to mix more advanced moves in with the basics. Her staff jabbed out and sliced fluidly through the air as she switched her stances and holds, adding the occasional twirl that allowed her to transition seamlessly into moves that were not possible from its current position. The whole thing felt effortless to her now. Like a dance she had performed a million times over. So she began to include some of the more complex non-staff moves.

For as long as she could remember, she had been fascinated with pole arms. The grace in which people who used them moved had always awed her. The simple elegance of a spear transitioning its low stance into a high one with a rising slash that allowed the user to continuously attack without the loss of momentum that usually came from switching stances was a beauty to behold. The wide arcing swings of the naginata were terrifying and seemed to reach for miles while also allowing the user position themselves to whichever side of the opponent they wanted. Her love for those weapons had inspired her creation of _Emission_ and it was the stances and moves of those weapons that she was practising now.

She allowed herself to switch between the styles. While they all had the same fundamentals, they each brought something different to the table. The spear focused more on thrusting while the naginata was great for slashing, it also had more focus on stances and backwards movement due to the longer blade.

At some point Majorella had lost track of time and was surprised by the sound of the timer she had set upon entering. Now that she was no longer focused, she suddenly felt very thirsty. She decided to call it and go back into the entryway for some water since Silvic would be arriving any moment for their sparring session. As she waited for the water cooler to fill up her drink she heard her scroll ping. A message from Silvic appeared on the screen.

' _sorry ella, cant make it to training. verdain called and wants the whole team for studying'_

Majorella couldn't help but feel disappointed but nonetheless she replied back saying it was okay and they could do it some other time. She had been looking forward to the fight. While she could easily ask anyone if they were up for sparring and most likely get a yes, she had wanted to fight Silvic because of the estoc he used. She had always struggling against fencing class weapons and was going to use this to learn how to handle them better but now that plan was a bust she had no idea what to do. After spending a couple of minute by the water fountain rehydrating, she gave a resigned sigh and decided that she should probably train for a little longer.

Two hours later, Majorella exited the dojo. Her clothes were soaked in sweat, her muscles ached and her appetite had returned but she knew she had to go and have a shower before eating. Her dorm room was too far so she ducked into the girls locker room nearby and took a cold shower. While she wished she could stay under the chilling water forever, her stomach had begun growling at her so she finished up and made her way back to the cafeteria for lunch. When she arrived, she helped herself to some food and sat down at a spare table with a large helping of tuna and pasta.

Majorella was half way through her meal when a yoghurt slid into her plate. Her confusion only lasted a second however as she saw Maggy slide gracefully along the bench on the opposite side of her table. She came to a stop facing Majorella with a smile.

"You still like peach right?" Maggy asked. Majorella gave a nod in response since her mouth was full of pasta. "Good, so hows ya day been?"

"Tiring, you?" She replied after swallowing her mouthful.

"Dull," Maggy sighed as she took the fork and helped herself to some food. "Don't suppose a certain raven-haired team leader has said anything that might cheer me up?"

"Not exactly subtle, are ya," Majorella joked, earning a smirk and a shrug from the girl. "She said you were mean and pushy." Majorella was surprised at the brief flash of worry that went through her friend's eyes. _Is she really that smitten?_ She thought to herself.

"Relax, she said you were nice and to say thank you," she corrected herself.

"Really, just nice?" Maggy said in fake hurt. "Not hot? Or sexy? Or wise? Just nice?"

Majorella couldn't help but smile at her friend.

"Ya'know, you could ask her yourself, right?" she teased.

"I could," Maggy said thoughtfully. "Or I could get my bestie's sister to find out for me and save myself potential embarrassment."

"Hmm I wonder what Skyla would say if I told her you've gone all lovestruck," she continued to tease, enjoying finally having something to make the girl swarm after the amount of time Maggy and Skyla tormented her in the past.

"Please don't," Maggy groaned. "She was unbearable last time."

"Last time?"

"Not important," Maggy replied quickly with an unusual edge to her voice.

Majorella knew not to push any further. While Maggy was very open about many things, Skyla was the only person she would ever talk to about more personal problems.

"Sorry," Majorella offered but just received a head shake and a smile in return. "But I'll do my best to find out."

"Great," Maggy said as she jumped to her feet. "Try find out in the next three weeks."

"Why?"

She didn't answer, instead she took another forkful of food before handing it back with a wink and walking away.

 _Poor Camea,_ Majorella thought to herself in jest.


	8. Chapter 8 - A New Tradition

**Chapter 8 – A New Tradition**

 **Nadea Heart**

Nadea approached the workshop and pulled the heavy door open. The smell of iron that filled her nose would be enough to make any new student stop in their tracks but Nadea had grown used to it in the two weeks since starting at Haven. What she had yet to get used to however was how the air felt. The remnants of dust from past users that filled the air made it feel volatile, like a single sneeze would cause an explosion large enough to reduce the building to rubble. She pushed the feeling of unease aside and walked into the workshop.

The workshop was very different to every other building on campus. Instead of the traditional Mistralian wood floor, the ground was solid grey stone. The walls themselves lacked paint and instead were red brick with vents spaced one metre apart. The room itself was a large space filled with thick metal benches and tables, which held a variety of tools. On one end of the room was a door that led outside to a gated off area behind the building where the forge was held.

Nadea scanned the room's occupants for her targets and found them sitting at one of the far tables. She took a breath in anticipation of having to talk to Nick and set off towards them. Camea was the first to notice her approach and gave a small wave. Her face was smudged with oil and her usually pristine braid had begun to come undone. As Nadea got close, she saw the pieces of one of Camea's shields laying on the metal table. Nick was currently leant over one of the parts.

"Hello Nadea," Camea welcomed her. Nick groaned as Camea said her name.

"Hey Cams," Nadea replied, ignoring Nick. "Hows the shield upgrade going?"

"Better if you'd fuck off," Nick interrupted.

"It's going fine," Camea answered as she give Nick a light nudge on the shoulder, earning a quick sideways glare from him. "How did you know I was upgrading it?"

"Ran into Ella on her way back from lunch and she told me," Nadea replied as she leant in closer. "What are you trying to do?"

"What she is trying to do is install a delivery mechanism that coats the chain of the shield in dust to give her some elemental damage without overheating the engine that powers the rotation," Nick once again interrupted. "It's all very complicated so would you shut up so I can focus?"

"Fine," She directed at Nick and turned back to Camea. "Wanna go and get something to eat?"

"Sure," Camea smiled and stood up. "Do you want anything Nick?"

"Salad."

Camea gave a nod in response and the two in them took off. As soon as they left the workshop, Nadea took a deep breath of fresh air.

"By the grace of Oum, how do you stand it in there?" She asked as she breathed out.

"You get used to it," Camea said while pulling her shawl from her waist, putting one end over her hair and wrapping the rest around her torso.

"I would rather not," Nadea replied with a grimace. "But lunch will be ending soon so we should get going."

"Actually, there is a little café a couple of stops down the mountain that serves an amazing Sunday sandwich," Camea suggested.

"And how expensive is this place?"

"My treat,"Camea offered. "Plus, I know the people who run it so I get a discount."

Nadea took a moment to think before she gave a nod and changed her direction towards the mountain's dreaded elevator. While Haven's cafeteria food wasn't bad bad by any means, she could certainly do with something a little different.

"So what made you wanna adjust your shields anyway?" She asked as they entered the line for the elevator.

"Well it's just Shrill really," Camea replied after a second of thought. "The chainsaw is great but it struggles against aura so I needed to adjust it. Plus, Nick said he had an idea from looking a Majorella's staff."

"You really trust him to not blow up you shield?" She said, only a little seriously.

"He's actually really smart," Camea chuckled while the elevator came into said with an almost inaudible hum. "And he's not as aggressive when he really gets focused on something."

"Still not gunna trust him anywhere near my guns," Nadea replied and stepped into the elevator.

"You really should, he might be able to help with the degradation of your blades," Camea tried to reason. Nadea noticed her voice wavered slightly. "Just think about it."

"Maybe."

Nadea conceded easily because the elevator doors were closing and she was more concerned with subduing the wave of panic that she knew would try to overtake her. She had had a problem with small spaces ever since she had been trapped under the rubble and lost her hand three years ago. At first she would panic whenever the door to her room back in Russle was closed but over the years she had learned to control it better by closing her eyes and thinking of an open field. That was exactly what she was doing while the elevator slid down the inside of the mountain and Camea,who had seemingly noticed this over the last two weeks, didn't try to continue the conversation.

The humming of the elevator stopped as it came to a halt at their floor. Nadea hurried out and took a breath of relief. She heard Camea ask if she was alright and simply nodded in response. Nadea opened her eyes and found herself in a long stone corridor with thick green vines hanging along the walls. It was obviously well cared for and she saw that just to her left she was a large balcony that overlooked Mistral. This was the direction that Camea was motioning for her to follow.

"So how was your study session?" Camea asked as she led her down a set of small stairs that branched off from the balcony.

"It was okay, Ixia spend most of it flirting with Alyse but she didn't seem interested in him." Nadea replied with a sigh. "I definitely won't be studying with him again."

"That would be rather annoying to deal with while studying I guess," Camea agreed while slowing her pace. "Here we are." Nadea looked at the building before her, if building was even the correct word. The entire store was into the face of the mountain with a sign saying _ANGELS REST_ one of the two doors, the other read _EMPLOYEE ENTRANCE_.

Camea wasn't lying when she said little. The window showed that it was only big enough for five, two-person tables leaving just enough room for the employees to walk around.

"We can go somewhere else if its too small," Camea said with a cautious smile.

"It's fine," Nadea countered, despite knowing that this shop would be a test.

They walked into the shop and took the seat by the window. Nadea was immediately grateful that the seat was available as she felt the all too familiar pressure, that was once again beginning to press in on her, start to dissipate as she looked out the window. They both sat in silence for a minute until a cheerful, blonde-haired waitress came over to take their order.

"Just two Sunday specials please Jasmine," Camea smiled back with evident familiarity. "Oh and could you prepare a vegetable salad for when we leave."

"Of course, that will be _125 Lien_ please," the girl replied and typed in the order on her scroll.

Camea handed over the required amount and the girl began to walk away before she seemingly remembering something and turned around back to face them.

"I would probably get fired for asking this," Nadea heard the blonde haired girl ask Camea in a whisper. "But can you please get your mom to call Mr Bell back? His constant complaining is starting to give me a headache."

"I'll drop a hint," Camea nodded back with a smile. The girl mouthed the words _'thank you'_ as she walked away. After the girl left, Nadea and Camea spoke for a little while until their food arrived.

It hadn't been and understatement on Camea's part when she said the food was amazing. The warm slice of gravy soaked bread made the chicken sandwich feel like heaven in her mouth and while the sandwich itself was rather large, in less than five minutes she had finished it and deeply desired another one. Unfortunately, she knew she couldn't afford another one and didn't want to ask Camea to pay for another one.

"I told you it was good," Camea smiled as she patted her mouth with a napkin.

"You were right," Nadea admitted with a chuckle.

"So would you uhh..." Nadea noticed Cameo's body language suddenly get rather fidgety but she allowed the girl to continue uninterrupted. "Would you maybe like to do this again next week?" She finished in a voice half its natural volume.

 _Was that it?_ Nadea thought to herself. _Why was that something Camea would be nervous ask?_

"Sure," Nadea smiled back. "But do you mind if I ask why that seemed important to you?"

"Well..." Camea hesitated once again but finally seemed to just give up and speak. "It might sound stupid but I was actually thinking we could do this every week, just the two of us, as a sort of way to bond and stuff."

Nadea felt the urge to chuckle but held it back, remembering how her partner had never made fun of her own claustrophobia.

"Doesn't sound dumb to me honestly," Nadea smiled. "But we are partners Camea so please don't feel nervous asking me for something, no matter how stupid you think it is. Okay?" Camea gave a nod in reply, her nervousness still evident.

"If I didn't know who you were, shifting like that would probably give me cause for a stop and search." Said a blue-haired woman, in what looked to be part of the Mistral police force attire, who had suddenly appeared behind Camea. Nadea saw her partners face instantly light up into a massive smile as she quickly turned around in her seat to face the woman.

"Oh my Oum, Sarah!" Camea stood up and threw her arms around the woman. "When did you get back?"

"Yesterday, sorry I didn't come up and see you but I was really tired," the woman smiled as she hugged Camea back.

"It's fine, Camea said with her face muffled in the taller girls shoulder. After she pulled back, Camea seemed to remember where she was and turned back to face her. "Sorry Nadea, this is my oldest friend, Sarah O'Shen. Sarah this is my partner Nadea."

"Ohh partner, I thought you were on a date," Sarah winked at Camea and gave the girl a teasing nudge while holding her hand out for Nadea. "Nice to meet you Nadea, I expect you will be seeing a lot of me around Haven during your time there."

"How come?" She asked as she took the woman's hand.

"Well I'm with the Huntsman Division of the Mistral Police Force," The woman said proudly. "Haven is mainly our jurisdiction so if anything happens with a Haven student, which it usually does, it's us who handles it."

"Sounds busy," Nadea remarked.

"Very," Sarah chuckled while turning to face Camea. "Speaking of busy, I have a meeting with the Mistral council I must get too."

"Could you perhaps tell my mom you saw me here when you get there?" Camea asked. Nadea noted this implication. Sarah seemed to understand because she simply shook her head with a smile.

"Will do," she replied and gave Camea another hug. "I will send you a message next time I am up in Haven."

"I look forward to hearing about your mission," Camea smiled.

"It's a good story, promise you that," Sarah said and opened the door to leave. "Sorry for the wait Mrs Nikos..."

Nadea watched through the window as Sarah walked away with a tall red-headed woman. She wasn't to sure how she felt about the new acquaintance. While she had seemed nice enough, the revelation of an active police presence at Haven concerned her and the fact that her partner was so close to one of then only added to the worry. What if Camea was to reveal where Nadea came from to the officer? Nadea knew Camea probably wouldn't do it on purpose but people slip up. A fact Nadea knew all to well.

"Are you ready to go?"

Camea's voice broke Nadea from her thoughts. The girl was already replacing her shawl and a new box was was on the table that she guessed was Nicks food.

"Is everything okay Nadea?" Camea asked, slight concern in her voice.

"Yes. Sorry, I just zoned out a little," She answered to settle the girls concern. "I'm ready."

Nadea stood up and they made their way out of the shop. As they walked through the door she felt her chest loosen from a pressure she hadn't completely realised was there but now that she was outside, the relief was evident. It looked like this new weekend tradition would be a good way to work on more than just hers and Camea's bond.

The two of them remained quiet until they had returned to the top of Haven mountain. However, once the stepped out of the elevator back onto one of Havens courtyards, she decided to bring up a subject she had heard earlier.

"So your mom is part of the council?" Nadea asked, careful to keep her voice even. She had told Camea of her mistrust towards the council on their first day as a team but had no idea that at the time she was insulting the girls mother.

"Oh, umm sort of," Camea replied and Nadea saw her partner rub her arm underneath her shawl. "She's the representative for Upper Mistral."

"What does that entail?" Nadea pressed, hoping to gain a little more information so as to not insult her partner in the future.

"Basically, the people and companies of Upper Mistral come to her with their problems and she sorts them by seriousness and brings them up to the council," Camea explained, though Nadea did notice the wavering of her voice over the words 'problems' and 'seriousness'.

"Sounds tiring," Nadea offered.

"Sometimes..." Camea seemed hesitant once again. "I know how you feel about the council so I hope this doesn't cause any problems between us."

"I'm not Nick, Camea," Nadea replied, a small amount of annoyance dripping into her voice. "I don't judge someone by the actions of others."

"You overheard?" Camea asked in surprise.

"I was nearby so yeah," Nadea admitted. "What happened sucks but taking it out on you is unfair."

"I don't like it either but I sort of understand it," Camea responded.

"Anyway, it doesn't sound like your mother is the one who makes the decisions so no, there's no problem," Nadea said dryly. "And even if she did then my annoyance would be at her, not you."

Camea only gave a nod to show she understood but it was enough.

"Well I should get back to Nick," Camea said as they approached the workshop building. "Do you need anything made while I'm there?"

"I could use some more .44 electric and ice rounds," Nadea replied.

"Will do," Camea smiled as she made her way off towards the workshop.

Nadea watched her partner walk into the workshop. She had learned a few things today and wanted to mull it over so she decided to head towards the shooting range. A little target practice always helped focus her thoughts.


	9. Chapter 9 - Reluctance

**Chapter 9 – Reluctance**

 **Nick Eldrien**

Nick began to tune out Miss Petunia as she continued to describe one of the more mundane battles of 'The Great War'. So far, the woman had failed to mention anything that he didn't already know himself. Before he had even applied to Haven, he had read all the books his village had on the subject multiple time and to hear it repeated to him now was much less entertaining. Mainly because he could be doing other things. He was at a combat school for crying out loud. But no, since they didn't take elective courses until their third year, he was stuck in this class.

Ever since the party two weeks ago where he had told her about his father, Camea had been rather more insistent on the whole team building thing. She had even laid down some rules. First of all they were all supposed to attend class together and every other day, with the exclusion of Sundays, they had team training. The most annoying of the rules however was the mandatory study session she had begun to implement every Saturday. However Nick had noticed that only he seemed to be annoyed by them because he was the only person not learning anything.

"Mr Eldrien, are you paying attention?"

The raven-haired teacher's raised voice cut through his thoughts and caused his to turn his attention back to her. Nick had noted on multiple occasions that Miss Petunia was indeed a stunning woman. Her wavy, long, jet black hair fell gracefully around her shoulders and framed a dark skinned face that should have, if anyone in Mistral has any sense, been on the cover of some beauty magazine. The rest of her was clearly very powerful, lean muscle filled her tall frame and the long legs that reached out beneath her skirt were simply spectacular.

"Not really," Nick confessed. He had no reason to lie.

"Well then, I am assuming, since you are being so brazen about your lack of interest in my subject, you wouldn't be able to tell me what happened to cause of The Battle of Crag Valley to finally come to an end?" Her voice was seeped in annoyance and she clearly expected an answer. One he was happy to give.

"After a seven day stalemate, General Roux noticed a pack of Grimm emerge from a small tunnel behind the opposing battalion, so she instructed her soldiers to fire upon the tunnel to create a larger opening," Nick summarised. "Surrounded on both sides and unable to retreat, Commander Rain's forces were quickly defeated. While many laid down their weapons, Rain refused and was killed by General Roux herself."

Miss Petunia took a second to reply, obviously impressed by his knowledge on the battle but not wanting to show it.

"Well apparently you do know your history," she smiled. "And since you know the battle so well you can give me a four page report on it. Double sided and in meticulous detail. You will also see me after class to arrange your detention."

Great. Just what he needed, more wasted time. Wasn't it enough that he answered her question? He notice motion to his left out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Nadea smirking and shaking her head.

"Shut it, bubblefuck," He spat, not in the mood to deal with her right now. She merely rolled her eyes and went back to taking notes.

Fortunately, the bell rang ten minutes later and everyone packed up their things to leave the class. While Nick would have loved to go back to the dorm room to lay down and cool off for an hour, he reluctantly approached Miss petunia's desk and took the seat that was there to wait for her to talk. Once everyone was out of the class she pulled out her Scroll and finally acknowledged him.

"Mr Eldrien," She began. "Why are you here?"

 _What a stupid fucking question, you asked me to stay behind,_ he thought to himself.

"To arrange a detention."

"No," she replied shortly. "Why are you at Haven academy?"

Nick took a moment to respond to this. Did he tell the truth or did he just keep it simple? Finally he decided on simple to get it over with as fast as possible.

"To learn," was all he said.

"To learn? You think not listening in class is _learning_?" she said incredulously. Nick was about to answer but she cut him off. "Well then, if you want to learn then I suggest you listen to me now Mr Eldrien. It does not matter if you already know what I am teaching, you should still be listening because I promise you, a Huntsman that does not listen or pay attention while on assignment is a Huntsman that does not live very long."

Nick said nothing, hoping that this would be over soon. However, she tapped some button on her Scroll and he saw his student file come up on the screen.

"Now from what I can see here, I am not the only teacher to be having problems with you," She continued. "Sleeping in Mr Pastell's class and an unsavoury attitude in Ms Copper's. In fact the only two classes where you seem to be a model student are Grimm studies and Dust application. I suppose it is a good thing you are attentive to such dangerous topics."

"Those classes interest me," Nick remarked earning a glare from the teacher that somehow made her look even more beautiful.

"Irrelevant," she scolded. "This behaviour cannot continue. It says on your file that you have an interest in the Atlesian Weapons Development Program and with the outstanding amount of time your ID badge shows you in the workshop, it is not hard to believe that this is true."

Nick simply nodded.

"Well I have contacts in those departments and believe me when I say that they would not look favourably upon you should they see this behaviour on your record," She said and took a breath. "You are a smart kid Nick, I do not want to co-sign your expulsion papers but should you continue like this, I will have to give it serious thought."

That one hit him. Expulsion was the last thing he wanted. If he was expelled then he could say goodbye to all his dreams and would have no choice but to return to his village. She seemed to have noticed this because her face softened.

"You will come here tomorrow at twelve to served a two hour detention and I want that report on my desk by Wednesday," she finished, her voice taking on a more pleasant tone. He only gave a nod in response. "You may go." Nick stood up and left the classroom.

Nick thought about the conversation as he walked back to his dorm. While she wasn't wrong on many of the points she made, she also didn't address that forcing him to pay attention during a topic he already knew everything about was stupid when he could be learning something he didn't. He sighed as he walked up to the door to his room and opened it.

The instant he opened it, he was greeted by an unnatural silence. He felt his ears ring in the absence of any other noise and a sense of unease settle over him. It wasn't the first time this had happened since starting Haven and he didn't have to look far for the source. Camea was sat at one of the study tables with her head in her hands, the deep purple of her aura was faintly visible due to the activation of her semblance.

He slammed the door as hard as he could but it produced nothing more than a muffled thud; so instead he went over and tapped her shoulder. She gave a start and the room seemed filled with noise. The sounds of students chatting floated into the room from the courtyard and while he knew that it was no louder than normal, due to the silence before, it sounded like they were shouting right outside the window.

"S-Sorry," Camea stuttered as she usually did when caught doing this. "I was reading and they were being loud." She pulled a book towards her that had clearly not been touched before his arrival.

He didn't bother to call her on this lie. He knew all to well what was going on and he really did not want to deal with it again. The previous times she had done this was in her sleep. While it was more common for her to silence the room a couple of times a week, sometimes she had woke the whole team by making it louder. He remembered a week ago when she had had a nightmare and woke up with a scream that had awoken not just them, but the two teams on either side of their walls.

Nightmares, stress and lack of confidence, though that last one seemed to be getting a little better. He had witnessed his brother exhibit all of these symptoms growing up.

"Whatever," he snorted as he shrugged of his blazer and began to undo the buttons of his shirt. "Where are the others?" He asked after a minute of natural silence.

"They went to meet Alyse," She said while turning to face the other way as he got undressed.

"Fair enough," he replied as he started to pull on his normal clothes, a pair of black jeans, a random t-shirt. He pulled his favourite grey leather jacket from the closet and folded it over his chair for when he inevitably went out later.

"So...," Camea hesitantly began. "Are you still waiting on that part?"

"Yeah," he grunted back. "Soon as they get the new regulator in I can finish the work on your shield. They said it should be any day now."

"Okay," she replied and closed the book she had randomly pulled out earlier. "Well I'm going to get dressed."

"Like I care," He muttered and laid down on his bed and shut his eyes.

He awoke an hour later to the sound of the door opening. He kept his eyes closed in hopes that whoever it was would see he was napping and be quiet; but as usual, his prayers went unanswered. Ella was giggling at something as he felt the bottom of his bed lower from her weight. Something small hit him in the nose and he opened his eyes to see her smiling it him.

"How much trouble did you get in?" She asked.

"Enough," was all he replied.

"Well that's what'ya get for flirting with a teacher," Ella said happily.

"I wasn't flirting," Nick sighed and closed his eyes again, hoping his partner would take the hint and leave him alone. Unfortunately she didn't.

"I know when you're flirting," Ella laughed, vibrating the bed slightly.

"Why would I flirt with a teacher?" Nick reluctantly gave into the conversation.

"You flirt with anyone remotely attractive," He heard from across the room. He looked behind Ella to see Nadea laying on her bed.

"Explains why I don't flirt with you," he threw out instinctively.

"Ignore him Nadea," Ella quickly said as she gave him a hard poke to the shin. He responded by kicking her off his bed. This did little to dissuade her. "I wish I was as beautiful as you."

"Careful, one wrong dust crystal to the face and you might get your wish," Nick jabbed once again.

"Please, like you'd say no if I offered," Nadea shot back.

"Are you offering?" Nick asked, adding an overly hopeful tone to his voice.

"Even if I was, I doubt you could handle it," She replied smugly.

"Wow Nadea, didn't know you were into the rough stuff," Ella teased and stuck out her tongue. All she got was a wink in response that made her giggle.

Nick groaned and decided to cease his attempts at further sleep since they apparently weren't going to shut up. He stood up and stretched his arms out above his head, his fingers almost scraping the ceiling.

"I need your Scroll," He said to Ella. Nick had been using his partners Scroll throughout his stay at Haven since he couldn't afford his own.

"You know you can put in a request for a loaned Scroll from the school like Nadea did right, right?" Ella asked as she pulled her Scroll from the back pocket of her shorts and passed it to him.

"I don't want a single favour from the council," He said shortly. Ella didn't reply but he saw Nadea look away.

Nick called the weapon shop to check on the part he needed while the two girls returned to whatever conversation they had been having. He was in luck, the part he had ordered was finally in and ready to be picked up. He handed the Scroll back to Ella and pulled on his jacket. He had roughly an hour before the store closed and he wanted to get it today so he could finish up the shield modifications tomorrow. He left the room without a word to the others, making sure to grab his student ID, and made his way to the elevator.

Ten minutes, the elevator came to a halt at the fourth stop down the mountain and he stepped out.

This part of the mountain had formed into a large plateau that had been flattened further over the years since Mistral's construction and now served as one big marketplace. Fruit stands and Dust vendors littered the area closest to the elevator but the further back you went into the market, the more niche the stores became. The food stands and dust vendors gave way to weapon stores and general merchants while further back became random stores dedicated to toys or jewellery, random trinkets and supposed mystical items that provided safety or strength. At the end of the plateau was a row of tables lined against a railing that gave a magnificent view of Lower Mistral and if someone leant over the railing itself they would see the supports that had been constructed to ensure the lands stability.

The market place was rather empty as it always was on a Friday night so Nick had no problem moving through the crowd. He walked past one of his favourite dust vendors, nodding his head in acknowledgement to the owner who waved a greeting when he spotted Nick. Unfortunately he didn't need anything from there today and couldn't afford to waste what little money he had left. He quickly found the store he was looking for and approached the counter. A portly man in a green uniform greeted him.

"I called earlier about the dust regulator," He said in a flat voice. It was commonplace for merchants to try and engage you in conversation in an attempt to sell you something you didn't want; but Nick knew that being blunt was a great way to avoid that.

"Ahh yes, Mr Eldrien was it?" The man replied, Nick simply gave him a nod to confirm, his silence a clear indicator that he didn't want to talk. "very good, I will just go and find it for you, please excuse me a moment."

Nick watched as the man walked through a curtain into the back and only then began to check out the rest of the store's stock. Much of the wares he could easily get for free at Haven, whether by the school having its own supply or someone willing to part with an item they didn't need, but he could always use more notepads as he tended to go through them pretty quickly. He leant down and picked up two grey wire bound notepads and was about to return to the counter when he spotted a purple notebook.

The book made him think back to his brother Grante. For Grante's eleventh birthday, their mother had bought him a diary, it was something that Nick knew his brother had treasured ever since even now that he was fifteen. He sighed as he remembered just how much that simple stack of glued together pages had helped the boy by giving him a place to write out all his fears and doubts. He finally resigned to the memory and shook his head while picking up the purple book.

"Here we go," Came a voice from the back and seconds later the uniformed man came back out holding a package. "Would you like the books too?"

He gave a simple nod and flashed his student ID at the man.

"Very well, since the package is already paid for, that will be 30 Lien with your Haven discount," The man smiled and graciously accepted the money that Nick handed him. He carefully handed over the parcel in a brown bag and shoved the money into a drawer under the counter. "Thank you very much for your patronage young man."

Nick didn't bother to nod back this time and quickly made his way back to the elevator.

 **Later That Night**

Nick laid awake on his bed, the sound gentle breathing from his sleeping teammates punctuating the otherwise silent room. He was always the last awake and quite enjoyed being so as it meant he could get some final work done without having the others talk and distract him. However tonight he wasn't doing any work. He had specifically waited for everyone to go to bed before doing about something he needed to do.

He reached into his drawer and pulled out the purple notebook he had bought earlier that night. He also ripped a piece of paper from one his own notepads and grabbed a pen. He laid the paper on his desk and wrote out a few simple words before getting out of bed and walking over to Camea's bedside table. Nick placed the purple book inside the top drawer and slipped the note inside, knowing she would find it in the morning.

With a final sigh, he shut the drawer and went back to bed.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **So I rarely do these notes at the end because I prefer to just allow you to read the chapter and move on, but I'm actually rather happy with this chapter so I hope you enjoyed. If you did then please follow/review as all criticism is welcome and it goes a long way to helping the story get noticed more.**


	10. Chapter 10 - Admission

**Just a quick note before the chapter, I was a dumb dumb and forgot to put the OC tag on the story. *facepalms* All fixed now though.**

* * *

 **Chapter 10 – Admission**

 **Camea Thystel**

Camea reached over with a groan and turned off her alarm. She had been having a rather pleasant dream but the contents were fading fast. She remembered laughing, a lot of laughing; but the more she tried to recall the rest, the quicker she forgot. After a full five minutes of failing to remember, she gave a sigh and reluctantly forced herself out of bed.

As usual, she was the first awake. From experience she knew that Nadea would be awake within the next half an hour, but Nick and Majorella would be asleep for another two hours at least. She enjoyed these moments of silence. The Haven Academy campus was normally noisy and strangely rather crowed considering its size but in the early hours of the day, it seemed peaceful. If not for the soft breaths of her teammates, she could almost convince herself that she was the only one there.

She took a few moments to appreciate the tranquillity, as she did every morning, but soon resigned herself to getting dressed for her morning run. She gave a quick stretch to purge the last of the sleep from her muscles before leaning down to retrieve her running clothes from the top drawer of her bedside table. She was met with surprise however when she pulled the drawer open and saw a purple book laying there.

She picked the book up and flipped through the pages only to be further confused upon finding them blank. She pulled the front cover open, hoping to find a name but instead found a small piece of paper nestled between the hard cover and first page. She pulled it out and gave it a quick read.

 _Camea,_

 _It is not uncommon for emotions to make us feel alone, especially when you think that there is no-one that will understand your troubles, but please remember that you do friends who are willing to listen. However, I also know that sometimes people just need to get their thoughts out of their head so I brought you this diary. Someone close to me once received the same gift and it helped them immeasurably. I hope it can help you in the same way._

Camea re-read the noted multiple time before setting it aside and looking around the room at each of her teammates in turn. One of them had bought her this diary. One of them had taken time out of their day to think of her and write this note. But she had no idea which one.

Nadea? The writing was definitely in her style but she was normally more upfront about important things.

Majorella? It was definitely the type of thoughtful gesture she would make but somehow Camea just couldn't imagine her writing those words.

Nick? No way. While she didn't doubt he was a good man deep down, thoughtful gestures like that just were not him.

The only other person she could think of was Maggy. They had messaged each other quite frequently over the past two weeks since they had met and she was definitely the type to do something like this. But how would she have put the diary in the drawer. Camea guessed she could have had Majorella do it for her but it seemed like a lot of work to go through for someone you had only talked to over the phone.

The question of who had bought her the book would have kept her occupied for longer had she not heard Nadea's Scroll begin to vibrate. The sound caused her to jump and she quickly pulled out her running gear so that she could return the book and the note back to the drawer before closing it.

Camea stood back up and turned to see Nadea stretching as she stepped out of bed, her t-shirt riding up to reveal her toned stomach. She took a second to admire her partners lithe yet powerful frame. In Camea's opinion, the girl was gorgeous. An opinion clearly shared by the male students of Haven as she knew that multiple people had asked her partner on a date. She also knew that Nadea had turned them all down without a second of hesitation. It had gone on for a while until people finally understand that she really wasn't interested. After they stopped, Nadea seemed much happier.

"Everything okay Camea?" She heard her partner say and pulled her eyes from the girls midsection. Instead she directed her eyes towards the girls face, only to be met with smirk.

"Oh uhh... yeah," Camea replied, a little embarrassed at having been caught checking out her own partner. She mumbled an apology and picked up her running clothes from her bed.

"No need to be embarrassed," The girl chuckled.

"I'm just gunna get changed," Camea quickly said to change the subject as she made her way to the bathroom. "Do you want to run together today?"

"Sure," Nadea replied and began to dig around her own drawers.

Camea didn't take long to get changed and by the time she exited the bathroom, Nadea was all ready to go. The two of them left the dorm room and spent the next thirty minutes jogging around the many courtyards of Haven Academy.

The the two of them would usually run together in the mornings, unless Nadea woke up late or just didn't feel like running that morning, and she rather liked having Nadea along. The girl was faster than her and Camea felt it was a great motivator to improve herself. There was also the races they did at the end that had a friendly competitive air and left them both smiling.

Today was no different. Camea was glad that Nadea was running with her and making small talk because every time silence settle over them, her thoughts would return to the diary and the note. While she was no longer ashamed of her condition, the fact that it had been obvious enough for someone to see made her feel a little uncomfortable; especially since she thought she had been dealing with it rather well lately. She had certain found herself still wishing to just curl up and go back to sleep or had the occasional inadvertent use of her semblance but they had been fewer and further between.

"...much longer?" Camea heard from her right. She realized that she has once again been in her head and mentally chastised herself.

"Sorry Nadea, what was that?" Camea panted as she fell back into pace with her partner.

"I asked if we are going to be going much longer?" Nadea repeated with a suspicious look. "We've been going for forty minutes and I'm getting kinda hungry."

"Oh right," She replied and came to a stop. She hadn't realised that much time had passed and her stomach did indeed fell empty. "I'm pretty hungry myself."

Nadea simply gave a nod and the two of them made their way to the cafeteria in silence. Camea was well aware that her partner's eyes were constantly looking her way but she ignored it. However once they had arrived at the cafeteria and sat down with their food, Nadea spoke.

"Is everything okay with you today?" She asked. Camea noticed the concern in her partners voice.

"Yeah, just things on my minds is all," Camea replied, giving a weak smile.

"If it's about this morning, you should know it really doesn't bother me," Nadea stated.

Camea was confused for a few seconds before she remembered being caught ogling her partner.

"No," She said quickly. "It isn't that. But I do apologise for that, I shouldn't have stared."

Nadea waved off the apology.

"Like I said, I don't mind," she replied with a smile. "But if it isn't that then what's wrong Camea?"

Camea played with her food while debating whether to be honest or not. It wasn't that she didn't trust Nadea, she just didn't really like to talk about it. After a couple of minutes she conceded, if she wasn't honest with her team, how could they trust her to lead them.

"Four years ago I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety," Camea began with her eyes fixed to her oatmeal. "I always had some difficulties around people but one day I had a massive panic attack in a store and that was the first time my semblance activated."

Nadea didn't respond but clearly she was paying attention.

"I thought it had been fine lately but this morning I found an empty diary in my desk with a note saying they had noticed and hoped it would help."

"Honestly, I'd noticed you being a little more stressed myself recently," Nadea replied kindly after a moment. "Who was the note from?"

"It didn't say," Camea sighed. "But since you are asking, I guess I can rule you out?"

"Sorry Cams, wasn't me," Nadea shook her head.

"Thought as much," She groaned. If it definitely wasn't Nadea then she had no idea who it could have been.

"Well I wouldn't focus on it too much," Nadea said to fill the silence that had begun to fill the space between them. "All it means is that someone wanted to show you they care."

"Who wants to show Camea they care?"

The new voice made Camea turn her head towards the speaker and the first thing she saw was long magenta hair. She followed it up to the owners face and found herself staring into a pair of soft blue eyes surrounded by a light speckling of freckles. Immediately she felt her pulse quicken and her tongue glue itself to the roof of her mouth. Despite their frequent communication, she still got more nervous than usual around her in person.

"We're not sure," Camea heard Nadea reply while she shovelled a spoonful of food into her mouth so as to have an excuse not to talk.

"Huh, well who ever it is, I don't blame em," Maggy said in her usual pleasant voice.

Camea felt her cheeks warm and just like with every time they were in the same room, she was thankful for her dark complexion.

"So what's your plans for the weekend?" The purple haired girl asked. Camea could have sworn there was a hopeful tone there but knew it was most likely her imagination.

"Team study session when Nick is finished with detention," Nadea answered. "Right Camea?"

Camea looked up for find her partner smiling at her. No, not smiling. Smirking. With Nadea the difference was subtle but she had begun to be able to tell the difference since they had been spending more time together. She swallowed her mouthful and gave a nod.

"Sounds boring," Maggy teased. "So what did Nick do this time?"

"Flirting with Miss Petunia," Nadea replied to Camea's confusion. "Ella says he was anyway, personally I think he was just being a dick."

"Oof, flirting with Allison?" Maggy chuckled. "Even I wouldn't do that."

"Wow, there's someone you actually wouldn't hit on?" Majorella said as she sat down at the table.

Camea hadn't seen the girl enter and was taken by surprise. For a girl with so much energy, she was rather good at going unnoticed.

"Many actually, including my besties little sis," The girl retorted.

"The only reason you don't flirt with me is 'cause Skyla would never talk to ya again," Majorella teased back but Maggy only laughed.

"You ain't as cute as ya think, Smella," she replied and stuck out her tongue. "But I do have to go, you're still doing that thing for me right?"

"Not now," Majorella replied with a fake pout.

"Awww you know I love ya really," She laughed and leant down to whisper something in the girls ear that Camea couldn't make out.

Majorella simply nodded and shooed her away. Camea watched Maggy leave the cafeteria only to see her turn back to flash a smile her way before turning the corner and moving out of sight.

"So you're awake early today Ella," Nadea pointed out while biting into an apple.

"Nicks fault," she replied as she picked up an unused knife from Nadea's try and pointed it at the girl apple. Nadea simply rolled her eyes and held it out for Majorella to cut herself a piece off. " He knocked his sword over and woke me up while rooting under Cams bed."

"Most likely searching for S _hrill_ ," Camea said. "I guess he wanted to work on it before his detention."

A sigh came from Nadea's direction.

"I honestly don't understand why he can't just act like a normal person," She said. "I swear, he's more ox than man."

"He's deffo got the stubbornness," Majorella replied. "But he ain't to bad once ya stop taking him seriously."

"I wouldn't know," Nadea said sourly. "All I ever get is insults."

"You start it sometimes too ya'know."

"Even if I didn't he would still be a dick."

"Enough," Camea interjected firmly, having seen where the conversation was going. Despite not wanting to get involved, she knew it was her job as a leader to stop them. "You and Nick both give as good as you get."

"Our wise leader has spoken," Majorella said in triumph. "So Cams,what the plan for today until Nick's ready?"

"I was thinking of going to the dojo for some practice," She replied. "Professor Mauve said that we had an important class on Monday."

"Ohh yeah, do you wanna do some friendly sparrin?" Majorella asked excitedly.

"Thought you'd been trying to corner Silvic into sparring with you?" Nadea replied.

"I am but he keeps saying he's too busy with team stuff."

"Really?" She replied with a scowl. "Verdain was complaining to me the other day that he's never around."

"You sure?" Majorella questioned sadly and received a nod of confirmation from Nadea. "Well that sucks."

"Please tell me you're not crushing on Silvic?"

"Eww, hell no," Majorella cringed hard enough to make both Nadea and herself laugh. "He's just the only one in our year that uses a fencing weapon. I wanna practice."

"I'm pretty sure there are three second year student that use fencing weapons," Camea offered.

"Yeah, I tried that but I barely touched em."

"Doesn't surprise me," Nadea said with a sympathetic voice while effortlessly tossing her finished apple into a nearby trash can. "That Terra girl is no joke."

"Well Nick currently has _Shrill_ but I would be happy to do some hand to hand," Camea smiled.

"Awesome, what about you Nadea?"

"I would but I have to check on something," She replied while getting up from the table. "Library at two?"

Camea simply gave a nod in response and the girl walked away.

Camea quickly finished the oatmeal and handed her fruit pot to Majorella who gladly accepted it. That was one of the things about Majorella that she liked. The girl was always grateful. She rarely complained about things and was always happy with what she got. On the odd occasion that she did get into an argument, she would forget and forgive almost instantly once it was finished.

Just as they were getting up from the table, her scroll vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked who would be texting her this early in the morning and felt a smile overtake her face as she saw Maggy's name pop up on her screen.

'oh forgot 2 say, u _may wanna turn that study session into a training session. I hear monday is going to be a funday. x'_

Camea looked at the message in confusion but another soon followed.

' _bad pun, sorry. but honestly, you might wanna train. x'_

She felt a chuckle force itself from her throat and quickly typed back.

' _Thank you for the advice. Also, it really was an awful pun.'_

Camea smiled and text Nadea the change of plans and asked her to inform Nick. Just as she sent the message to Nadea, Maggy's name once as popped up to indicate another message.

' _maybe, bet it made you smile though. x'_

Too engrossed in the text conversation, Camea barely noticed as they reached the dojo. It was only when Majorella ushered her through the door that she finally stopped texting and put her Scroll away.

The two of them quickly made there way through the large entryway full of student doing their morning workout and enter one of the large back rooms. As usual the room was already occupied by another pair so they took a seat on one of the benches that lined the wall to wait for their turn.

"So who was it that had ya smiling so much?" Majorella asked as they watched the fight.

"Just a friend," Camea tried to make it sound unimportant while suppressing another smile.

"By friend you mean a certain fourth year with purple hair right?" the girl giggled to herself.

 _Am I really that easy for everyone to read?_ Camea thought to herself as she watched one of the fighters struggle to regain his balance after a heavy hit.

"Maybe," She finally responded.

"And I'm guessing that's who ya've been textin' most nights?" The girl asked with a knowing smile while running a hand through her light blue hair. Although it was a shade lighter and had streaks of white running through it, Majorella's hair always reminded her of Sarah's.

It was clear to Camea that Majorella was not simply asking these things out of idle curiosity.

"Sometimes," Camea replied.

Majorella seemed to be taking a little time to think of what she wanted to say next so Camea watched while the two fighters exchange blows while she waited. She noted that one of them seemed to be acting a lot more impatient due to the others insistence on deflecting his attacks.

"Cams, I've known Maggy my whole life, almost literally" the girl finally said in a voice that she had not heard before. This was the first time that she had heard Majorella seem truly serious when speaking. "Her and my sister were almost inseparable since they were born and she was even at the hospital when my mother was giving birth to me."

She paused for a second to look up as one of the fighters let out a frustrated growl before continuing.

"It's been eighteen years since then and in all that time, I've never seen her act like she has lately," Camea suddenly felt nervous about what the girl was going to say next. "Like at first I thought it was just Maggy being Maggy and it would pass in a day or two but it didn't. Every time we hang out, she's constantly checking her Scroll and askin if I think you like her. So I guess this is me finally asking for her?"

Camea had figured that was where the conversation was going and that was precisely why she had been nervous. However; since Majorella seemed to be taking the situation seriously, she knew she had to be honest.

"I do like her," she confessed. "But I've never been in a relationship before."

"So if she asked you out on a date would you say yes?"

Camea took a moment to think but finally gave a slight nod. She instantly regretted it as worry about the potential future date quickly settled on her and made her head hurt at all the possible things that could go wrong. Fortunately she didn't have time to dwell on it as a loud buzzer filled the room to indicate that one of the current fighters had lost.

"Okay," Majorella said with a smile as she prepared to go down onto the sparring mat. "I guess I'll let her know, maybe now she'll talk about something else."

* * *

 **A/N**

 **OK, so first things first. Thank you Stormzx for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed Nick's perspective. I was actually really worried when I started writing his chapter but I quickly found that he was my favourite character to write for.**

 **In other news I recently got Soul Calibur 6 and while I haven't done much fighting, like at all, it does have a pretty solid character creator that I have been spending a lot of time in. As you can see, Camea is now the story pic and I'm going to include an imgur link for the characters so you can get a good idea of what they actually look like in my head. Just a little teaser, I do have a picture of Maggy too but you will have to wait until the next chapter for that.**

 **Anyways, if you enjoyed the chapter or have anything you think I could improve, please follow or leave a review, valid criticism is always welcome. And just a precaution since RWBY volume 6 has come out for first members as of posting this, please no spoilers in the reviews (though I doubt you would)**

 **imgurcom/ a / AXarYL8**

 **(Nick left horn is snapped off but the creator doesn't allow that so yeah)**


	11. Chapter 11 - Ninjas and Ribbons

**Chapter 11 – Ninjas and Ribbons**

 **Majorella Atmos**

Majorella entered Haven's secondary dojo and took a seat on a nearby bench with a few other students. The building was rather sparse, consisting only of a single staged fighting area and a few benches since it was used solely for combat class but she was rather excited for today. Ms Copper, their combat instructor who was currently leaning against the far wall watching the student enter, had been telling them that today's class would be an important one that was done every year but had refused to tell them more. It wasn't long before the rest of the class arrived and her teammates came to join her at the bench. It looked like Nick and Nadea were in the middle of an argument yet again.

"What took ya so long?" She asked since they normally arrived before her on Mondays.

"Blame her," Nick motioned towards Nadea. "She lost her stupid speed loader."

"I didn't lose anything, you moved it," The girl argued back earning nothing more from Nick than a shrug.

The two continued their argument in lowered voices while they took their seats.

"It's always something," Camea sighed in frustration as she sat down.

Majorella was about to reply but the teacher pushed herself off from the wall and walked into the centre of the stage. She was short and plump and while not the most formidable looking woman, you could definitely tell there was a strength to her in the way that the room fell silent as the coughed.

"Good afternoon class," she smiled at them as the room returned her greeting. "As you have been made aware, today's class will be a different type of training that will be done every three months. It is an important exercise as it will help us determine just how far you have come throughout the year."

She saw Camea straighten next to her at those words.

"Now to help me with this task, fourth year team Mahogany has kindly offered their assistance," She continued as she held out a hand toward one of the side door. As if practised, the door opened and Maggy and her team walked through onto the stage. "I will let these lovely people introduce themselves first."

"Magenta Collins, team leader," Maggy introduced herself, a smile breaking out over her face as her eyes immediately falling on Camea.

This was the first time Majorella had seen Maggy in her combat gear. She wore a black bomber jacket and a pair of black slightly loose-looking bottoms, both of which were accented with purple. A pair of dark purple boots and gloves covered her hands and feet that looked to be made out of leather but parts of them glinted a little too much in the light. Around the girl's neck was a bright red scarf that stood out strikingly against the black and purple.

Majorella had already told Maggy of the conversation she had had with the girl on Friday and it the time limit she been given was anything to go by, Maggy would be asking Camea out any day now.

"Hovarias Cain," Said the boy to Maggy's left in a low voice She had seen him multiple times but they had never interacted. He wasn't as tall as Nick but he was far more muscular. Long green hair flowed down to his shoulders where thick brown arms stuck out from a white shirt. Poking out from behind his back was what she knew to be a greataxe.

"Gardenia Swelt," Said a dark-skinned girl dressed in all white that, in Majorella's opinion, looked at no older than herself. The girls white dress that stopped around her knees gave her an almost innocent, childish look. The weapon at her side however did not look so innocent. A shortsword made of two metal rods coiling around each other with coloured thorns running the length of each coil.

"Yidic Sowlaar," said the final member of Maggy's team, a man with a radiant smile, wearing what looked to be a fine orange dress shirt with red lines spiralling all over it. He had no weapon that she could see.

"Thank you. Now for today's lesson, each team will take turns to choose an opponent and your goal will be to retrieve as many of these ribbons as you can," Ms Copper smiled while holding up five bright blue ribbons. "Your team will receive two points per ribbon and an extra five should you manage to defeat your opponent."

Majorella watched as some of the teams began to huddle a little closer and talk in hushed whispers.

"There will be no time limit to the fights," Ms Copper carried on. "The fight will end when every team members aura drops to the red or you obtain all the ribbons. You have five minutes to decide as a team who you will be fighting so I suggest you get discussing."

The room broke into conversation straight away as the teams discussed their potential opponents.

"Okay Majorella, what do you know about each of them?" Camea asked her.

"Well I remember Maggy's was very fast last time I saw her fight and she loves small weapons but the others, not much honestly, I rarely see them," she replied, disappointed she couldn't be more helpful.

"Oh okay umm..." Camea hesitated briefly before turning to Nick. "Nick what do you make of their weapons?"

It was a smart decision to ask Nick that. She had seen him identify key parts of weapons from a single glance.

He grunted as he always did when asked something. "Well Maggy's looks like a tanto, fast but no range, though it has a trigger on each end of the grip so obviously has some trick to it. Green bean's looks like a standard greataxe, slow yet powerful. The girl's I would need a closer look and the other one has dust in his shirt."

"Then I say we go for that Cain guy," Nadea suggested. "We can easily out manoeuvrer him."

"No," Camea interjected. "Maggy said he excels at fighting groups, we should avoid him."

"If not Cain then I would say Maggy," Nadea replied. "We know the most about her."

"It's a rare occurrence but I agree,"Nick chimed in.

"Same," Majorella agreed with them.

"Okay," Camea nodded. "Maggy it is then."

Less than a minute after they decided, Ms Copper called for silence and requested that each team say who they wanted to fight. Cain was the most requested as four of the ten teams chose him with each of the others get two requests.

Once everyone had chosen the fights began. First up was team Verdigris against Cain and it was immediately obvious that Camea hadn't lied about Cain being good against groups. Its took him less than five minutes to knock the entire team out and didn't lose a single ribbon.

Next up was team Cassiopeia against Yidic. This fight lasted longer and they managed to get one ribbon from him but it didn't seem like he used much of his dust, instead relying mainly on a fighting style very much like kick-boxing. When he did use the dust. his hands would become enveloped in flames.

Team Canary lost spectacularly against Gardenia. It seemed like every hit she landed sparked some kind of dust reaction that had a different effect each time. Majorella watched in awe as team Canary found themselves either trapped in electrified ice or flying across the stage in a fireball for a majority of the fight.

Their team was next. They had discussed strategy during the other teams fights and had decided that the best choice was to keep Maggy occupied so that Nadea could provide support from a distance to pressure her. Majorella would play the middle ground to stop the girl from getting too close to Nadea if she managed to break away from Camea and Nick.

They stepped onto the stage and got into formation. Nadea took her place at the back and drew her guns, giving them a quick spin before she pointed them at Maggy. This didn't go unnoticed by the girl who simply gave Nadea a wink. Majorella stood in front of the girl with Nick and Camea.

"Whenever ya ready," Maggy half laughed from the other side of the stage as she lowered her stance and drew her weapon with her right hand. Nick was right about it being short. The sword itself was no longer than the girl's forearm and she held it backwards so the plain black blade ran along her arm. The base of the hilt was pointed directly at them. Two ribbons were tied around each arm and one around her leg. With one last smile, she pulled a purple cloth from around her scarf up over her nose so that only her eyes were visible.

Camea held for a couple of seconds before she finally muttered "Now."

Camea and Nick rushed forward when Nadea fired her first shot. Majorella stood her ground and heard electricity crackle past her ear as the dust round made straight for Maggy's chest. Predictably she dodged it with a simple right sidestep but it had bought enough time for Camea to get to her. Camea thrust out her left shield into a straight jab at the girl at the girl mid sidestep but Maggy's left gauntlet emitted a purple flash and she was pushed even further to the right. Majorella recognised it straight away as gravity dust.

Maggy turned the momentum into a roll, landing in a crouch. Nick greeted her with a two-handed horizontal slash aiming directly for her chest but she used her low stance to backflip into the air and avoid the blow. Nadea seemed to want to take advantage of this as Majorella heard another shot ring from behind her but once again Maggy avoided it with another burst of gravity dust, this time from her left palm. The momentum made her do a barrel roll in the air but just as she straightened out, her boots flashed purple and sent her rocketing forward.

Nick's aura flashed grey as Maggy's tanto slid across his chest. She landed behind him and span around just in time to deflect Camea's uppercut into Nick's back. Not wasting a second, Maggy brought her knee up into Camea's stomach, a small flash of purple from her boot showed that she had enhanced the attack with dust. Camea crouched over, obviously surprised by the attack and was quickly flipped forward onto the floor. Maggy brought her blade up and blue energy crackled around it as she slammed it into the floored girl's chest. Camea let out a small scream as electricity coursed through her body.

Nick had recover from the earlier hit and launched a kick at the purple haired ninja but once again she dodged and brought the hilt around to face him. Majorella didn't know what had happened but suddenly all three of the fighters were covered in thick smoke.

"Stay alert," Majorella heard Nadea say behind her as the waited for Maggy to emerge from the smoke. Almost half a minute later, a blur of black and purple came streaking out of the smoke towards them.

Majorella swept her staff in a wide arc but the girl fell into a slid to duck below it. Majorella stepped back just in time to avoid a rising strike from the girl and ducked, knowing Nadea would be ready. And she was. A shot sounded behind her as she ducked but she saw Maggy deflect it with the sword as she was to close to dodge it. Knowing that would likely be the outcome, she swung her staff at the preoccupied girls legs. Fortunately it hit. Maggy's legs buckled but as she fell onto her back, she performed a back vault to get back onto her feet and pointed the hilt of her sword at Nadea. Majorella only just made out the base opening and a small pellet flew out to strike Nadea in the face. Smoke immediately enveloped her.

Majorella gave her staff a spin to deflect Maggy's next attack but the girls leg swung around to hit her hands. The blow caused her to fumble but she managed to grab the end and jammed it the gravity crystal into the girl. For some reason she decided to block it and was sent skidding backwards across the stage. As the girl came to a stop, Majorella saw Nick and Camea emerge from the thinning smoke ready to re-engage.

Maggy hadn't seemed to have noticed so Majorella fired off a small fireball to keep the girls attention. She easily dodged it but Camea was ready and slammed into the girls back, sending then both tumbling to the floor. Camea landed on top straddling the girl stomach and wasted no time in slamming her shield downwards towards the girls face. Maggy moved her head to the side to avoid it and brought her arm up to deflect Camea's next attack. However now her head was trapped between the Camea's two shields.

Nick seized upon the opportunity and slammed the sole of his boot into the girls face. Camea hand slipped down as the girls vision was obscured and managed to rip a ribbon from the girl's left arm and shove it in her pocket. Nick raised his sword this time and was about to slam it down but Maggy thrust her tanto out at his ankle. It sparkled blue once again and caused Nick to drop his sword and fall to his knees.

With one ribbon pocketed, Camea struck out with a hook but Maggy's legs came up into the girls back and caused Camea to roll off of her. Maggy did a flip kick to get to her feet and looked ready to continue her assault but a shot rang out from behind Majorella and Maggy was forced to dodge. Camea and Nick fell back and joined them again.

"Majorella, swap out with Nick," Camea said breathlessly and turned to Nadea. "You and Nick cover us."

Majorella gave a nod and looked down at her scroll. She was surprise to see that Nick and Camea's aura gauges were already below half since they hadn't taken many hits. She figured that Maggy must have done something to them in the smoke. Camea gave the signal and both of them went in for another assault. Her eyes still gleaming from enjoyment,Maggy once again lowered her stance as they drew closer.

"Up." Camea ordered.

Majorella obeyed and used the gravity crystal to launch herself into the air. Camea once again reached the girl first a threw a fake punch to force a dodge but Maggy didn't fall for it. Instead she ducked below it and attempted a leg trip that Camea hopped over. As she soared through the air, Majorella pulled the trigger block an pulled back in a slight downwards arc. The naginata blade formed from the ice dust and Majorella locked it into place and swung in a low wide arc once she had passed over Camea's head.

Maggy leaned back to dodge the blade but was hit by Camea's tethered shield that she had thrown. She returned it to her with a pull of the string. Majorella landed with a heavy downwards slash that Maggy barely managed to sidestep. A small white explosion went off at the girls feet as the weapon head shatter and the floor was covered in ice.

Camea threw her shield once again but this time Maggy snatched it out of the air with her free hand and yanked it towards her causing Camea stumble. A loud bang sounded Majorella and multiple projectiles flew straight for Maggy but she slipped Camea's shield in front of her to block them. She used the moment to do a pirouette, slamming the shield into Camea's chest as she came around. Losing no momentum she continued spinning and launched herself into the air to deliver a powerful spin kick to Camea's face.

A buzzer sounded to signify that Camea had been eliminated.

Knowing she needed to retreat, she slammed the gravity crystal into the ground hard enough to make it shatter. The energy that released was enough to sent both her and Maggy soaring in different directions. She came to a halt just in front of her teammates.

"You're second in command," Nadea said as she helped her to her feet. "What's the plan now?"

"Equals Manoeuvrer," She replied and they both gave a nod to show they understood. "Go."

Her and Nick rushed forward this time she reached first and swung her staff horizontally at the girls knees. She jumped to dodge it but Majorella activated her semblance to make herself heavier as Nick use her shoulder to leap up and follow her with his own high horizontal sweep. Maggy used her boots to transition her leap into a forward somersault in order to avoid the blow but she was unable to dodge the streak of silver that hit her shoulder and sent her spinning. Majorella took the opportunity to unleashed a torrent of fire at the girl and was grateful to see it wash over her.

The girl fell out of the fire and seemed to be frowning. The enjoyment had gone from her eyes now, instead they were dark and empty. All life and emotion had been removed and she knew that Maggy saw her as nothing more than an enemy that needed to be dealt with. Majorella felt a chill run up her spine at the intensity they held but Nick either didn't notice or didn't care and lunged out with a forward thrust once she landed. She deflected it and rolled forward to shove her blade into his stomach. It flashed blue again and nick was put to his knee from the current but the blade was quickly ripped back and slashed to the side to deflect a shot from Nadea.

Majorella leaped on Nick and swung diagonally to try for a hit while the girl was distracted but Maggy leant back to avoid the blow. She felt the girl palm strike her chest hard and then the world turned grey. Thick smoke blocked her vision and she spun her staff to protect herself from the attacks she knew was coming. However it couldn't protect her from behind.

The first strike ripped across her back but felt the electricity more than the blade as her muscles seized slightly. The next strike felt instant across her stomach. Then her side, her thighs, the back of her knees and finally she felt the tip of the blade slam into her sternum. Electricity coursed through her making it difficult to move. A single kick to the chest later, she flew out of the smoke much further than a normal kick would send her.

A buzzer sounded and she glanced down to see her aura was now in the red. In the time it took for Majorella to get to her feet, another buzzer sounded as Nick's aura hit the red too.

The only one left was Nadea and Maggy was already running full speed at the girl. Nadea seemed to realise that her gun would be useless now and extended the blades hidden between the barrels. Maggy did not care.

Nadea met her with a double downward slash but Maggy blocked both blades with her left hand and delivered an uppercut to Nadea's chin through the space between the girls arms. Once it connected, Maggy pushed her arm further up and ripped the blade along Nadea's torso then slipped it behind the girls neck. Blue energy flowed from the blade along the girls body as Maggy delivered knee after knee to the girls midsection until she finally flipped her and slammed the small blade into her chest twice.

The buzzer sounded for a fourth time as Nadea's aura hit the red.

While the fight had felt like an hour to her, the timer on the wall revealed it had only been four and a half minutes. "Good shot," she Maggy say and looked up to see her helping Nadea to her feet and led her over to her, Camea and Nick who were seated on a front bench. The girls legs seem a little shaky her muscles shook off the damage Maggy's blade had done.

"Well fought Miss Collins," Ms Copper said loudly as she stepped onto the stage. "Sixty-five percent aura left after fighting two type of weapons you struggle against."

"Thanks," She replied with a smile.

"Though next time, please try not to play with your prey as much," The teacher scolded. "You underestimated your opponents and it cost you a ribbon."

"I know," Maggy bowed her head before turning to look at each of them in turn with the same look that had sent shivers up her spine earlier. "It wont happen again."

"Very well," Ms Copper nodded and turned to them. "Team Cinnamon, you fought an opponent who specializes in evasion, separation and immobilization but still managed to obtained one ribbon, very well fought."

"Thanks for a fun fight," Maggy said and held her hand out to Camea. She shook it with a smile and Maggy leaned in to speak in a lower voice. "Hopefully I can return the favour and treat you to a day out on Wednesday?"

The grin that spread over Camea face and she gave the smallest of nods made Majorella want to burst out laughing but she held it in so as to not embarrass the girl more.

"Great," Maggy laughed. "But I gotta go restock for the next fight. See ya."

While the next fights went on, Majorella thought back on what the teacher has said after the fight. She remembered watching Maggy train back in Vacuo before she left for Haven but what she had seen today was so far from that. Ms Copper had even said Maggy had been playing for part of it. Majorella could pinpoint exactly when her oldest friend had stopped playing with them, and felt uncomfortable to know that the look in the girl's eyes scared her.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Combat is very tough for me to write so any feedback you can give in it would be very much appreciated. But that aside, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and as promised, the picture of what I imagine Maggy to look like is below.**

 **imgur,com/a/Cc58QVC**


	12. Chapter 12 - Trust

**Chapter 12 – Trust**

 **Nadea Heart**

Nadea sat at her table and watched the minute hand of the clock tick by. She had ten minutes of detention left the serve and then she was free to go. The reason for her situation was sat two tables away, tapping his foot audibly against one of the legs. With each small bang she could feel her annoyance grow. She did she best to keep quiet but with five minutes left, she couldn't take it any more.

"Stop fucking tapping," She spat at Nick only to receive a sneer in return.

"Piss off," he shot back.

"Language," Mr Pastell interjected, not bothering to look up from his papers. "And please do stop tapping Mr Eldrien, it is infuriating even me."

He tutted and leant back to put his feet on the table.

It was only half way through the day and Nick had already succeeded in annoying her more than usual. Their first class of the day had been Dust Application where Nick had managed to blow up their table along with all the notes for that lesson. The explosion had been strong enough to send Ella tumbling over the table behind them.

Their second class had been Engineering where had had not shut up once again about how her guns could have been better designed. Fortunately their third class had been History. Nick hadn't been sitting with them in History since his detention last week due to the fact that Miss Petunia has been giving him different assignments to the rest of the class.

However the detention they were serving was due to his actions in their final class. He had spent the entirety of Cultural Studies making remarks about her village and their beliefs until she fired back with some words of her own. While Nadea knew she should have ignored his poking, she just couldn't.

Thankfully Nick remained quiet for the last few minutes and when the desk alarm rang out, the teacher merely gave an idle wave of his hand to dismiss them.

"You're a little more touchy than usual, ain't you," Nick smirked as they walked out of the classroom and made their way towards their dorms. "You're time of the month or something?"

"And your being an even bigger asshole," she replied.

"How so?" He asked dismissively.

Nadea stopped and turned around to face him.

"You do realise you could have seriously hurt Ella today, right?"

"Okay, first off," Nick replied as he came to a halt too. "She would have gotten a mild burn at most and her aura would have healed it in minutes. Secondly, I was doing most of the work and it was you who passed me the wrong dust canister."

"I did not," Nadea said in disbelief that he was now trying to pin it on her. "I passed you the canister you pointed at."

"Yeah, and who was is that was fucking around with them beforehand while I was working huh?" Nick retorted angrily. "You switched their places without me knowing and then blamed me for getting them mixed up."

Now that she thought back on it, he wasn't wrong. Her and Ella had been debating which dust type was better out of electric or ice and they had both used a little of the dust from the canisters to show off.

"Fine," She was never one to deny when she was in the wrong. "That may have been partly my fault. But that doesn't excuse how much of a dick you have been for the rest of the day."

"Oh I'm sorry," he answered sarcastically. "Did a couple of words hurt your feelings. Grow up."

"I don't care what you say about me, but ridiculing my village is the same as ridiculing my family," she fired back.

"Like I care about your village," He sneered. "Your people would try and attack me the second they saw my horn. Why should I give a damn about insulting them."

That one took Nadea back for a second. Nick once again wasn't wrong. As much as she loved her family and friends back home, there were definitely beliefs they held that she didn't. One of the main ones being that Faunus weren't allowed in the village. She also knew for a fact that some of the people were more rough with faunus merchants they robbed.

"Is that why you don't like me?" she asked genuinely hoping he would say no. "Nick, I'm not..."

"You're not like them?" Nick interrupted. "What reason do I have to believe that? Like you said, I'm an asshole, but I'm an asshole to everyone and quite frankly I don't care enough to change that when I can be doing more important things. But you. Your fine with everyone but me. Silvic and Clay are assholes yet you just ignore them but when I say something, you jump down my throat."

"Silvic and Clay aren't my teammates," she argued. "I don't give a shit what they say because I don't rely on them to back me up. I'm supposed to know that you have my back in a fight yet every time you see me it's like you would prefer to be the one stabbing it."

"Then I guess neither of us trust each other," Nick concluded and shouldered his way past her.

That statement hurt her more than any other argument they had ever had. It was one thing to know that someone you fought alongside didn't like you, it was another to know they didn't trust you. Despite what she had said about Nick, she knew that he never would. In fact that statement felt like the only thing Nick had said that was wrong. She did trust him.

She had found a receipt in the trash yesterday for three notepads, two grey and one purple. Nick was the only person on the team who used them frequently enough to need multiple so she immediately knew that the receipt was his. She also suspected that Nick was the one telling Silvic not to spar with Ella because the day after the party once they had left the room, Nick had hung back when normally he would have gone straight to the workshop.

Wrapped up in her thoughts, she barely noticed the she had arrive back at the dorms until she was greeted by her two other teammates. Camea seemed to be digging through her drawers and Ella was sat in the window with her legs hanging outside, a position Nadea had grown used to seeing her in.

"Hey jailbird, how was detention?" Ella asked as she allowed herself to fall back into a graceful cartwheel.

"Boring," she replied dully. "What are you guys doing?"

"Helpin' Camea pick her clothes for her date tomorrow," Ella giggled.

"She says that but so far she hasn't been much help," Camea said with her arms halfway in the drawer.

"I said you'd look great in the last one," Ella laughed.

"You said that about all of them," Camea replied with a small amount of desperation in her voice.

"That's 'cause all ya clothes are kinda the same."

"She has a point Cams, you look great in them though," She agreed. Ella stuck her arms up in victory and fell back onto her bed.

"Really?" Camea asked with a sigh.

Nadea nodded, causing the girl to breathed out and shut the drawer.

"Ya take her word but not mine," Ella faked insult.

"That's because your idea of nice clothes is probably short shorts and a t-shirt," Nadea pointed out, earning a chuckle from Camea.

"You can joke but they'd guarantee a second date."

"Must have really dated some princes if that's your logic," Nadea jabbed.

"Eww, who wants a prince," Ella scoffed. "Don't think I could date someone who treats me like a princess."

"There is always Nick," Camea suggested with a smile. "I don't think he would do that."

"Oum no," Ella shivered. "I want someone who can tell me to shut up when needed, not fuck off."

"Where is Nick anyway?" Camea asked.

"No idea, we had an argument and he walked off," She replied with a sigh and walked over to her bed to sit down. "Do you two think I'm racist against faunus?"

Silence filled the room as she watched Camea and Ella glance at each other. It was clear that neither of them wanted to go first. Finally, the silence seemed too much for Ella and she broke it.

"Well..." She paused. "I don't think _you_ are, but you are a little ummm..."

"... Dismissive of others being so," Camea finished.

That confused her, she couldn't remember any time when she had dismissed someone being racist.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean you don't really seem to notice it happening," Camea clarified. "From what I've heard about Vale, faunus don't have too much trouble, but I know faunus are still treated pretty badly in most parts of Mistral. Even more so in Atlas."

"People in Vacuo don't really have problems with faunus," Ella cut in. "If ya can make a livin there then you're accepted. Regardless of race, gender or colour."

"Even here at Haven, Nick get called names and stuff," Camea continued. "You were talking to your friend Verdain last week at lunch and she commented on Nick being vegan as him not wanting to eat his family."

"I heard, but she was joking," Nadea tried to argue but both Camea and Ella shook their head. "She wasn't?"

"It wasn't the first time she made remarks like that and she's most certainly not the only one," Camea finished.

"But like we said, it's not you being racist," Ella said. "And I'll talk to Nick tonight, he's been getting on my nerves lately too."

Nadea nodded back. "Thank you." Nadea was grateful for their honesty. As her friends it would have been easier for them to just deny it.

The next few hours passed with them laughing and joking as they helped choose Camea's outfit. While none of them brought up the earlier conversation, Nadea kept it in the back of her mind. Mostly she thought back to her conversations with Verdain and found that looking back on them, she could easily pick out moments where the girl had been less than pleasant about Nick and other faunus.

Now that she was aware of it, she was determined to keep an eye out for it in the future. Not only because she prided herself on being observant and to overlook something so big made her uncomfortable, but also because it might help towards making the issues with Nick better. Something she was willing to work on even if he wasn't.

After they had finished picking out her partners outfit, she decided to take a shower. After a rather frustrating day, the idea of standing under the hot water and letting it wash away all her problems was a welcome one. It wasn't until she stepped out and began to dry herself off that she heard the bang of their dorm room door opening and Nick muffled voice came through the bathroom door.

Nadea reattached her prosthetic arm and pulled on a pair of loose jogging bottoms and a tank top before she left the bathroom to find Ella once again sitting in the open window talking to Nick who was laying on his bed.

"Look, I understand Nick, I do, but she's done nothin' wrong," Ella was saying as Nadea walked into the room. Ella looked at her as she came in and gave a weak smile. "Sorry, would ya mind givin' us a couple minutes?"

"Sure," she replied.

"Thanks, Camea went for dinner," she said purposefully. "We'll be down soon."

Nadea understood and left the room, making sure to grab her Scroll and her right gauntlet on the way out. She slipped the gloved gauntlet over her right arm and made he way down to the cafeteria, hoping that the conversation Ella was having with Nick would help. She had noticed that while it didn't look like it on the surface, the two of them got along rather well. Ella seemed to be the only person that Nick didn't insult constantly and he seemed much more tolerant to her poking him when he said something out of line. Admittedly there was still the occasional name calling when he was in a bad mood but for the most part they were rather close.

It didn't take her long to find her partner in the cafeteria. She was sat at one of tables closest to the doorway with two plates of food in front of her and talking to Correl, the leader of team Cassiopeia. Correl was one of the people she had come to like in her time at Haven. The ginger-haired girl was kind to everyone and seemed to exude an energy that almost always made atmosphere around her a happy one.

"Hey Nadea," The girl smiled as Nadea sat down. "Love the Pyjamas."

"Thanks," she smiled back.

"Correl was just asking about organizing a sparring match with us," Camea stated as she pushed a plate of lasagne towards her. Nadea accepted it and took a bite of the delicious food.

"Sounds fun," She replied after swallowing her mouthful. "Teams or pairs?"

"Pairs, team fights take too long for simple sparring," The other team leader answered. "So just us three and Sapphire."

Taking another bite of her food, she gave Camea a nod of agreement.

"We're free on Friday if you want?" Camea said.

"Absolutely," Correl got up and cracked her neck, the only habit that Nadea had ever come across that made her cringe. "Training room two at 12 o'clock."

"Looking forward to it," Nadea called after the girl that was skipping away. As she dug into her fork into the lasagne once again, her hand suddenly crushed the fork and seized up. "Dammit."

"Is everything okay?" Camea asked with a little concern in her voice.

"Yeah," She groaned. "Just didn't have a chance to sort it out before coming down."

With a sigh, Nadea removed the gloved gauntlet and prosthetic. She would rather have done the maintenance in their dorm away from prying eyes but since that wasn't possible at the time, she resigned to have to do it at the table. The only other option was to not have use of her right arm until she got back to the room.

Fortunately it didn't take too long to find the problem. It seemed one of the limiters that stopped her from gripping things too tightly had come loose and the sudden forced of her grip on the fork had caused a rod to pop out of place. Not able to fix the limiter till she got back to the dorm, she slipped the metal back into place and hoped it would stay put.

"I really need one of those arms from Atlas," She sighed and accepted another fork from Camea.

"I could talk to my mom," Camea offered kindly. "Quite a few people on the council owe her some favours and they are in regular contact with the Atlas council due to trades."

Nadea appreciated the offer but shook her head.

"Thanks Cams but I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway," She replied. Money was only part of the reason however. While she wasn't as against the council as Nick was, she was definitely not keen on asking for such a big favour from them.

"Well the offer stands."

The two of them continued to eat and engage in idle chitchat for a couple of minutes until Ella and Nick joined them at the table. Whether Ella had been successful in her goal she didn't know as Nick didn't say a word. However Ella simply smiled and asked Camea to come to the food counter with her.

Once the two of them left, and uncomfortable silence came over the table. Nadea was sure that Ella had led Camea away for a reason so she waited for Nick to break it. Sure enough, with an initial tut, he spoke.

"I acknowledge that my earlier comment was out of order," He grunted, not looking at her. "You've never been outright racist to me and it was unfair to say you were."

While not a proper apology, Nadea knew it was most Nick would be willing to give.

"It was, but Camea and Ella helped me see that I have been ignoring some of the stuff that's been said by friends of mine," Nadea said. As always, she was willing to accept her part in it. "While not my words, I apologise for any part I may have played in it."

Silence one again fell over the table as they processed each others apologies. It wasn't until Camea and Ella began to make their way back that Nick spoke again.

"I still don't like you, Bubblefuck," Nick sneered.

Usually that insult would have annoyed her; but in that moment, she found she appreciated it. Talking seriously to Nick was awkward and she knew that it was his attempt at dispelling the weirdness.

"Feelings mutual, Dickolas."

She knew this wasn't going to be the start of a great friendship she hoped it was the start of something more amicable. Wanting to further that, she took a leap.

"So you said you could improve the blades on my guns?"

Nick only laughed in response.


	13. Chapter 13 - Plans

**Chapter 13 – Plans**

 **Nick Eldrien**

Nick stood from his bed with a yawn. He had spent a majority of the night working on plans for adjusting the blades in Nadea's gun and hadn't noticed how late it was until he looked at the clock. With the clock telling him it was almost 6am, he had finally called it and gone to bed. While not an unusual occurrence for weekends, he always ended up regretting it on school days. He stretched out his shoulders until he felt the last of the tension leave his muscles and ran his hand over the stubble he had allowed to grow in his time at Haven.

A quick look around the room showed that as usual he was alone, Camea and Nadea most likely having gone for their run and the sound of the shower running in the adjacent bathroom indicating that Ella had only recently woken up herself. With a sigh, he began to get dressed.

Even though he had been wearing it for over a month, Haven's uniform still didn't feel right. The trousers were far to thin and soft compared to his usual tough jeans and the blazers were much lighter than his leather jacket. The dress shirt wasn't too bad and thankfully he didn't have to wear a tie but the trousers and blazer often felt weightless and their restrictions on his movement due to their closer fit always caught him off guard. Fortunately, the school didn't object to students wearing small pieces of armour over the uniform so he made sure to always attach his single steel pauldron to his right shoulder.

Finally dressed, he looked down at his bedside table to quickly review the plans he had drawn up last night and mentally chastised himself. In his tiredness, he had made a rookie mistake and failed to take into account that the weapons would be lighter with the new blades he intended to fit and therefore would throw off Nadea's aim. However, with only thirty minutes left until class, he didn't have time to fix it right now. Instead he snatched up the plans and shoved them into his pocket to work on during lunch.

"Hey, you're awake." He heard behind him and turned to see Ella stepping out of the bathroom already dressed in her uniform.

While he wasn't a fan of the male uniform, he was definitely a fan of the girls. The short skirts and knee high socks where very much to his taste and even though he had no real interest in Ella, he still had to admit that she looked good in them.

"I thought I was gunna have to wake'ya up," She continued as she picked up a brush and began to sort out her hair. "What time'd ya go to bed?"

"Six," he grunted back. The was still a little tension between them after their small argument last night where they had both said some things they regretted. Fortunately the apologies had been quick and they were moving past it.

"Musta got a lot done?" she asked.

"Most of it, the guns aren't that badly designed so the adjustment will be easy," he replied while digging through his night stand. Finding what he was looking for, he pulled out two chocolate bars and held one out to Ella only to pull it back when she reached for it. "Tell Nadea I said that and you will never get another."

The girls face broke into a grin as she accepted the gift, immediately ripping the packaging open to eat it. Ella's weakness for chocolate was one the team had discovered very early and they had begun to use it to great effect. While many people had a price for their services that was often Lien or favours in return, his partners was simply chocolate. It didn't even have to be good chocolate. Just give her a candy bar and all small incidents would be forgiven.

"We should get goin'," she said once she had finished and had thrown the wrapper into the bin.

They two of them made their way to Dust Application, one of the only classes they had every day, with Ella making most of the small talk Nick contributing with the occasional grunt. His partner knew that on day like this he was likely to be less talkative so generally stuck to simple topics and easy to answer questions.

It didn't take long to get to the classroom and take their seats next to Camea and Nadea. As they sat down, Camea handed them both an apple and he bit into straight away. While eating, Dr. Crimson entered the classroom and as usual, the man was talking to himself.

The man was probably the weirdest teacher at Haven. He seemed to be eternally talking to himself and while never late to class, between them he had a tendency to get very lost. Nick had once encountered him on the second floor of the first year dorm and when the man had saw him, he had asked where he was. The weirdest thing about him however was the random outburst of anger. It wasn't uncommon for him to be explaining something interesting about a type of dust before suddenly flipping out and punching the chalkboard. He also didn't appear to own any clothes that weren't torn to shreds.

Nick had heard many rumours about what had caused all these things since their first class and while many of them seemed ridiculous, a couple seemed likely. The most accepted one was that the man suffered from split personality disorder; but quite a few people believed that the man had been in an accident with dust and it had left him just as unstable as the material he worked with. Either way, Nick didn't care. The man was a genius when it came to dust and his name was on almost every major textbook regarding the substance. For that alone, he was the teacher Nick respected the most.

The lesson was very much the same as all the previous ones that week. Dr. Crimson introduced a new way to fuse dust to make the type stronger and gave out small canisters for students to practice. Fortunately there was no repeat of the explosion from yesterday and Camea even took the lead after Ella told her he didn't sleep much. In fact many of their classes did.

Now that they were in the middle of the term, teachers were starting to bring up the long term subjects. Mr Pastell had begun to teach how the great war had form much of the modern culture in Mistral. Ms Copper was now matching up the stronger solo fighters with pairs. Miss Petunia was giving him harder work than the rest of the class that revolved more around what caused 'The Great War' while the rest of the class were discussing the importance of the importance of the Vacuo/Vale alliance. Even Mr Pitch who taught Grimm Studies, the only other daily class, was now beginning to move away from studying singular Grimm and had begun to lecture them on the rise and fall of villages due to Grimm attacking habits.

By the time lunch came around, all Nick really wanted to do was sleep. However, he knew he couldn't so he pulled the plans for Nadea's weapons from his pocket as began to work on the weight problem while he ate his salad.

"So Cams, nervous for later?" He heard Ella say from next to him.

He looked up to see that Camea was just pushing her food around her plate and was unable to contain the snort that pushed its way pushed it way out of his throat. Ella obviously heard as she immediately punched him in the leg.

"I feel sick," She whispered.

"You know Maggy will be okay postponing it if you're no feeling up to it," Nadea said in a soft voice.

"NO," Camea blurted out, drawing his eyes once again. "I don't want to postpone it, I'm just worried I will mess it up."

"Not like she can be expecting the world best date," he grunted while erasing part of the blade he had drawn on the plans. His comment once again earned him another punch in the leg only this time he turned to face his partner. "What? Maggy knows she has never been on a date before. If she expects Camea to not be nervous then she's dumber than she looks."

"He said it like an ass but he's not wrong Cams," Ella sighed. "Maggy ain't expecting ya to be super confident, she's expecting you to be you."

Nick had to try very hard to resist rolling his eyes at how cliché that comment was. Instead he went back to the design and coloured in the part of the blade he had erased to indicate that he wanted to add a weight to the area. In fact, adding the weights there would be more beneficial since not only would it help with weighting the gun, it would aid in making the girl strike harder as the weight would shift into the blades once Nadea extended them.

"I know," Camea sighed. "But I'm still worried I am going to say the wrong thing or do something to ruin the date or maybe she just wont enjoy being out with me."

"Camea, you message each other almost every night and she still wants to take you out, so I doubt she's now going to enjoy herself," Nadea reassured the girl. "And as far as saying the wrong thing, just don't say anything Nick would say."

"Fuck you," Nick replied without bothering to look up from his work.

By the time the gong sounded out to indicate lunch was over, he had finished a vast majority of the work and thankfully he could get pretty much everything he required from the school supply. He would have to ask Terra for some high tension springs but the girl made them so often that she always had some to spare.

Mathematics and Mistralian flew by pretty quickly; however by the time Engineering came around, he was far too tired to pay attention. Fortunately, the team sat at the back of the class and were rarely called upon by the teacher so Camea didn't bother to wake him when he fell asleep. Instead he was awoken by the final gong that signalled the end of the school day.

Nick felt better after the small nap and quickly made his way back to the dorm room and stripped out of his clothes. Now dressed in his jeans and the heavy leather jacket, he let out a sigh of relief as he immediately felt more comfortable. While he would have liked to lay down and enjoy the silence for a little longer, Ella and Camea exited the bathroom talking very loudly.

"So what time are ya meeting her?" Ella asked, her voice tinged with excitement.

Nick let out a sigh. This date was all he had heard about for the past two days.

"She's coming by in..." The girl looked at the room clock and her eyes widened comically upon seeing the time. "Thirty minutes," she quivered.

"Cams, don't worry, it's gunna be fine," Ella smiled only for it to falter a second later. "Camea?"

Nick looked up once again to see that the girl was breathing heavily. The quick darting of her eyes and how shaky her legs appeared to be caused his instincts to kick in.

He jumped off his bed and grabbed Camea by the shoulder to lead her over to the window, forcing it open to allow her to get some fresh air. He knew he was right about her unease as he felt her shake in his grip.

"Camea you're panicking, I need you to look at me," He ordered repeatedly until her eyes focused on his own. "You need to slow your breathing, can you do that for me?"

The girl took a moment but responded by taking a deep breath and holding it in. He felt her shakes lessen almost straight away and she slowly exhaled.

"Good," Nick nodded. "Now tell me, knowing everything you do about yourself and all you know about Maggy, do you truly believe you could do anything that will make the day unbearable?"

Camea appeared to think for a second as she took another deep breath before she shook her head in response.

"Neither do I," Nick gave her a stern look. "So keep telling yourself that."

The deep breathes seemed to finally begin to settle her so Nick released the girls shoulder.

"And remember you can cancel at any time if its too much."

Sensing that the anxiety attack was passing, he slowly moved back to his bed. On the way, he walked past his partner who seemed frozen in place shifting uncomfortably. Knowing what it was like to witness and not be able to do anything, he didn't judge her for freezing up.

He let out a groan as he laid back down. He thought the days of handling things like were behind him. Not that he didn't love his brother, but being Grante's main support had taken its toll on his life.

After his father's death, his mother had shut down for quite a while and even though she had eventually started to become much like her normal self, the damage was done. She had tried ever since to fix her relationship with Grante and had succeeded in some ways but Nick had always been the boys go to when he was having a tough time.

Not wanting to deal with those thoughts today, he shook his head to clear it. Instead he rolled onto his side and reached down to grab the plans for some final reviews. As soon as Nadea got back from wherever she was, he could go over the plans with her. If she was fine with everything, then he could potentially go to the workshop and forge the blades today.

Lost in the plans, he didn't notice how much time had passed until a loud knock sounded throughout the room followed by a loud bang as Camea all but fell off her bed. Nick had to suppress a laugh as the girl straightened her clothes and ran over to open the door only to stop and turn to Ella.

"What do I say?" She whispered.

"Try saying hello," Nick interrupted. For once, Ella nodded in agreement.

Nodding to herself, she turned around and slowly opened the door.

"H-Hi," he heard Camea breath shakily.

"Hey," Came Maggy's confident voice from the other side. "You look great."

"Th-Thank you," Camea replied.

Nick watched as the girl looked at the ground in an attempt to hide her smile. A ridiculous action considering Camea was slightly taller than her date.

"Are you ready to go?" Maggy asked. Nick didn't need to see the girl to know that she was smiling.

"Oh... yeah, one second," Camea replied and moved away from the door to search her drawer for something.

Taking his chance, Nick stood up and walked over to the door and stepped outside. Maggy stood there in a red blouse and black leggings. She looked up at him and moved aside, clearly expecting him to continue on. Instead, he remained standing in front of the girl and pulled the door shut behind him, he activated his semblance to allow his strength to grow and tightened his grip on the handle.

"This is the girls first time doing this and she's not exactly the most confident person," he started with a growl, making sure not to break eye contact. "So if I hear that you've done anything to make her uncomfortable, we will have serious problems. Understood?"

Magenta stared back with a hard gaze. While he knew the girl could take him in a fight, there were plenty of other ways he could make the girl last year at Haven a living hell and he wanted her to understand that he wouldn't hesitate to do any of them.

"Perfectly," She replied in an even voice.

He was about to go back into the dorm when a hand caught his arm.

"It's good to see Ella ain't wrong about you," She said in a sincere tone.

He gave the girl a grunt in return and pushed the door open. Both Ella and Camea were stood there looking at him in confusion. Not bothering to answer their questioning looks, he turned away and laid back down on his bed.

"Ready?" He heard Maggy say.

Camea,who was still looking at him, started and gave a small nod. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and with one last look at him, left the room.

Silence filled the room as the door swung shut. Nick, knew she was waiting for the two girls to move away from the door before speaking. After almost a minute passed, she apparently felt they had moved on and finally voiced her question.

"What did you say to Maggy?" She asked. Her voice was firm yet he sense hesitation it.

Not wanting to bother with a long explanation, he answered the girl as simply as possible.

"What needed to be said."


	14. Chapter 14 - The Date

**Chapter 14 – The Date**

 **Camea Thystel**

The smell of hot dogs greeted Camea as she stepped out of the theatre into the busy street, passers-by twisting and sidestepping so as to avoid her. While night had begun to fall, the weather was still warm. A slight breeze brushed across her skin but it wasn't cold enough to make her shiver, in fact it felt nice after the stuffiness of the theatre.

The date so far had been fantastic. After Maggy had picked her up, they had engaged in small talk all the way to the elevator, granted Maggy had done most of the talking since Camea was still too nervous to talk properly but she had enjoyed it nonetheless. Once the elevator had reached their floor, Maggy had led her to the theatre where she had already bought them both tickets to see one of the newest plays by the The Wine Brothers called 'Peace at War'.

The play itself had been amazing. Set during the Great War, the play followed the story of four soldiers, each from a different side of the world. After the collapse of the building they were fighting in, the four soldiers were forced to work together to escape the rubble. While feeling rather cliché for the most part as they all seemed to set aside their differences to survive, the play was full of funny and sad moments that kept the whole audience engaged throughout.

"There you are," She heard Maggy say from behind her.

Sh e turned around to see her date giving her a smile that made the blood rush to her cheeks. The corners of her mouth pulled themselves up as the looked at Maggy. She looked breathtaking tonight. Her clothes seemed to suit her in a way that Camea had never seen clothes suit someone before. While very modest, the red blouse and black leggings helped exude an aura of sexy confidence that had drawn her eyes numerous times throughout the night.

However the thing that she found herself liking the most was Maggy's short, magenta hair. The way it was swept to one side and fell down to cover her left eye did something to Camea's mind. For some reason it added an aura of mystery to the her that Camea just couldn't resist.

Having realised that she was staring again, she cleared her throat and gave her head a subtle shake.

"Sorry," She replied with a smile. "I just needed some air."

"It's fine," Maggy smiled back and held her hand out to reveal a small bottle of water. "It is a little hot in there, ain't it?"

"Yeah," Camea agreed as she accepted the water and took a sip. "The play was incredible though."

"I'll admit, I'm more of a movie girl myself but it was more enjoyable than any play I've ever seen," The purple haired girl laughed and motioned in front of them to indicate she was ready to go. "Though that may've been due to the company."

Camea was once again unable to stop the smile that forced its way onto her face.

"We could have gone to a movie," Camea replied guiltily. "Opening week tickets to a Wine Brothers play must have cost you quite a lot."

"They were worth it," Maggy smiled and shook her head. "But if you wanna make yourself feel better, you can pay for dinner."

"I intended to," Camea admitted as she turned the corner and made her way toward the mountain elevators.

"And when did you plan on telling me that?" Maggy asked jokingly with a raised eyebrow.

"When we ordered our food," She replied.

The girl let out a small chuckle and gently bumped their shoulders together. Camea stumbled slightly and laughed at the childish behaviour she hadn't expected to see from the girl. As she caught back up, her hand bumped against Maggy's. Heat immediately rushed up her arm and she pulled it back from the shock, her mind rushing just from the simple contact.

Fortunately Maggy didn't seem to realise that Camea's heart rate had increased dramatically as thoughts of reaching out and grabbing the girls hand rushed through her mind. Not wanting to make a big deal of a such a small amount of contact, she focused on forgetting it.

"So where are we eating?" Maggy asked as they stepped into the elevator. "Camea?"

"O-Oh, sorry," Camea started. "Plateau Bazaar."

"You okay?" she asked and pressed the button.

"Yeah, just remembering the play," Camea lied and hope Maggy would buy it.

"Please don't lie Cams," Maggy replied instantly.

Camea felt guilt course through her at underestimating the girls senses.

"Sorry," She said. "Just got stuck in my head is all."

"Okay," Maggy replied.

The quiet grinding of the elevator's gears echoed off the stone walls as silence began to settle between them. Camea could tell that Maggy wanted to say something but it wasn't until the elevator came to a halt and they stepped out that she spoke up.

"I'm sorry," She said quietly. "I know it probably wasn't a big deal but I have a bad history with liars."

"I-It's fine," Camea replied. "I understand not liking lies."

"Guess I kinda ruined the good mood huh," She sighed.

"NO!" Camea blurted out, not wanting Maggy to think she wasn't enjoying herself. Embarrassed by the sudden outburst, Camea looked down at her feet. "Y-You didn't"

"Thanks for the enthusiasm but I did," Maggy chuckled before looking around. "I'm guessing we are going to the overlook?"

Camea nodded and turned right at the dust store Nick constantly dragged the team to whenever they were in the market. Apparently he used them because they were one of the few dust stores in Mistral that didn't get their supply from the Schnee Dust company.

It only took a couple of minutes to get to the overlook but in that time Maggy seemed to have regained her confidence. By the time they arrived at the food stall nearby, they were once again exchanging small talk.

"Ahh returning customers," the Elderly woman behind the counter greeted warmly her as she approached. "The usual my dears?"

"Yes for me please Dotty," Maggy smiled.

"Yes please ma'am," Camea replied before turning to her date. "Do you know everyone?"

"Pretty much," Maggy winked. "Dotty here has been feeding me since I started at Haven, ain't that right Dotty?"

"Mhmm," The woman hummed in return. "Fortunately you're much better behaved than that partner of yours."

"Nah Gardenia's fine, just quick to temper," Maggy countered.

"I remember," the woman replied darkly. "That will be 58 Lien dear."

"Keep the change," Camea said as she handed over a sixty Lien card.

"Thank you dear, please take a seat, we'll bring it over."

Camea and Maggy made their way over to a seat the was directly against the balcony and sat down. While _Angels Rest_ had been her favourite café for many years, she had always loved this view ever since she was a child. Even though she had lived her whole life on a higher part of the mountain, something about the sounds and smells the bazaar contributed made things much more exciting.

"Dare I ask what happened with Gardenia?" Camea asked out of interest.

"Nothing too bad..." Maggy replied with a grin. "Okay fine, some guy wouldn't stop bugging her so she dangled him over the edge and threatened to drop him if he didn't go away."

"Oh my Oum!" Camea exclaimed in shock.

"She wouldn't have done it," Maggy laughed.

"Poor guy," She smiled.

"He got off lucky," Maggy continued to laugh. "She could have actually gone on a date with him."

"How is that worse?" Camea asked confused.

"Just trust me," Maggy smiled and faked a shiver. "The tales I've heard from guys she's dated still haunt me."

Camea laughed at that one. She refused to believe that the small girl she had seen during combat class was truly that terrible.

"Are any of them actually true?" She asked with a smile.

"I know of one," Maggy said thoughtfully. "She'd kill me if I say though."

"Better not then," Camea chuckled. "What about you?"

"Have I scared dates off?" Maggy said in surprise. "Not sure."

Camea couldn't help but hear the faint drop in the girls tone.

"Sorry," Camea quickly said. "Was that too personal?"

"No," She replied with a genuine smile. "Just bad memories I would rather not remember."

"I understand," She nodded and looked for a change in topic. Fortunately, one came to mind straight away and she had thought of it a lot since Maggy had asked her out. "So what are your plans after you graduate?"

"Police," Maggy replied without hesitation.

"Wow," She exclaimed at the sudden answer.

She was surprised at the answer. From what she had seen of the girls skill's, Camea figured she would go into bounty hunting or something similar.

"Yeah, I did a lot of missions with them last year and it just felt right," Maggy explained. "They do an internship for two Haven fourth years each year and if I do well there, I have a guaranteed spot on the Huntsmen Division."

"My oldest friend is part of that unit," Camea smiled. "Sarah O'Shen."

"I met her a couple of times," Maggy nodded. "People seem to respect her a lot."

Camea was about to reply but she was interrupted by the arrival of their food. At some point in the conversation she had completely forgotten that she was hungry; however, she was reminded the moment the scent of her chicken and rice casserole filled her nostril. She felt her stomach give a small groan in an attempt to urge her to eat.

Once the waiter had placed Maggy's tagliatelle on the table along with two waters and a small selection of cutlery, he bowed and returned to the small building they had ordered from.

The food was excellent as always and the two of them ate while continuing the conversations between bites. Camea told Maggy about her life growing up in upper Mistral and she told her about Vacuo in return. She learned that Maggy was an only child and that her parent ran a bar in a rather shady part of Vacuo. Camea was talking about her mothers roles in the council as they finished their meal when a loud shout sounded out from deeper in the marketplace. The two of them chose to ignore it until a second one reached their ears.

"We should probably see what that's about," Maggy said as she wiped her mouth and stood up.

Camea followed suit and the two of them made their way into the market allowing the telltale rushing of a forming crowd to guide them to the shouting. It didn't take them long to find wear everyone was gathered and they quickly began to push their way through the crowd. Once they reached the inner circle, they were greeted by the sight of two men on the floor, one sat on top of the others chest constantly raining down punches to the face of a male rabbit faunus.

"HEY!" Maggy shouted from beside her and rushed in to pull him off the beaten man. "STOP IT!"

Maggy succeeded in tearing the two apart but once she had managed to push the attacking man back, the other got to his feet and looked ready to charge. Even though she knew Maggy could handle it, she stepped forward to put her hand on the man's chest and gave him a threatening look.

"Don't be stupid," she said to him as he looked like he was about to swing at her to get her out of his way.

His gaze fell upon her Haven ID that was pinned to her top and he seemed to second guess his original intention. The other man however either didn't see Maggy's ID or didn't care as he attempted a right hook that Maggy easily grabbed and forced the man to a knee.

"FUCKING HALFBREED," The man Maggy had on his knees shouted.

"Shut up," Maggy ordered and Camea saw her apply a little more pressure to the man's arm, earning a pain yell in response.

Clearly not wanting to have his arm torn off, the man quickly shut up.

"Call the police," Maggy pointed to a nearby civilian, who pulled out their scroll, before turning to the man that ran Nick's favourite dust shop. "You run a nearby stall, what happened here?"

"I'm not quite sure, I think that faunus boy tried to purchase something and he just flip...," The man started to reply, only to be interrupted by the man on his knee.

"Filthy fucking rat tried to steal from me," He spat, his voice filled with venom. The man yelled out in pain once again as Maggy gave his arm another twist.

"I dint steal nothing," The faunus man argued back only to fall silent from the combined stares of both Camea and Maggy.

"Okay, I want you and the owners of all three of these stalls...," she pointed to the other three stall that were facing the man's. "...to remain here, the rest of you move on with your day."

A mumble ran through the crowd and a majority began to walk away and talk about the events that had transpired. By the time the police had arrived and taken both of their statements, night was fully upon them.

She checked her watch as they stepped out of the elevator onto Haven's campus and saw that it was nearly 10 o'clock. The police had kept them behind to recount what had happened three times and by the time they had finally let them go, Camea was starting to feel the tiredness settle into her bones. She heard Maggy let out a sigh as she too stepped onto the solid path and they both began to walk. Looking forward to getting back to the dorm so she could sleep, Camea aimed her direction towards the first year dorms only to be frozen in place as she felt a hand slip into her own.

Her mind immediately exploded into disarray as warmth flooded her body and her heart began to beat so fast that Maggy could surely hear it. She suddenly found herself wondering if the energy now coursing through her veins would ever allow her to sleep again. A full minute passed as she processed the feeling of Maggy's hand in her own. It hadn't moved from its position as the girl was clearly waiting for Camea to take hold it properly or pull away. Hesitantly, Camea slowly moved her hand to entwine their fingers together.

"I wish the night hadn't ended like that," Maggy sighed quietly as they once again began to walk toward the dorms.

"M-Me neither," Camea replied nervously, the warmth of their entwine finger still pulsing through her body and making her heart race. "I enjoyed the rest of the night though."

"Me too," Maggy said and threw her a smile that dragged one out of her own out.

After that the fell into a pleasant silence until, much too soon for Camea's liking, they arrived at the first year dorm building and walked through the door. Camea couldn't help but feeling a little said when they stepped into the dorm elevator and pressed the button for her floor as she knew it meant there date was about to come to an end.

"Sooo..." Maggy drew out the word as they stepped out into the hallway and made the short walk to her room. "There's this ball thing that I've been invited to in a couple weeks time and I'm really hoping I impressed you enough tonight that you might be willing to be my plus one?"

Feeling the smile threaten to overtake her face again, Camea came to a stop in front of her room and turned to face her date, suddenly aware of how close they actually were.

"Absolutely," Was all she replied.

While just a single simply word, it was enough for Maggy's face to break into a wide grin. It blinded her so much the her brain didn't register that Maggy had leant forward slightly until she felt the the girls breath tickle her skin. Worry coursed through her as she slowly mimicked the actions, now so close that she see every pour in the girls skins, Camea mind went blank for a second before she clearing. With one final breath, she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Maggy's.

Fire instantly flooded her system as Maggy deepened the kiss slightly. The girls lips were extraordinarily soft and bacon assaulted her senses, threatening to overwhelm her. _This is_ dangerous, she thought to herself as she saw herself easily growing addicted to the feeling. She pulled back slightly but quickly threw caution to the wind and pressed back against Maggy's lips.

After a couple more seconds, it was Maggy who finally broke the kiss. However, she remained close for what felt like hours before finally backing up and letting go of Camea's hand.

"Pretty good for your first kiss," The girl said breathlessly. Camea tried to reply but her voice refused to listen to her request to speak. "I guess speechlessness is a good sign."

Camea couldn't help but let out a slight chuckle at that and fortunately is was enough to break the tension.

"I should get going," Maggy said and dropped her hand. "Night Cams."

"Goodnight," Camea finally breathed. Maggy smiled once more before turning and walking back down the hall. With one last look, she moved into elevator and out of sight.

Camea took a moment in the empty hallway to compose herself for what she knew was waiting on this other side of the door. With a final smile to herself, she pushed the door open and walked in. Majorella was a blur of blue as she launched herself off the bed and immediately asked how that date had gone. Camea found her voice much easier this time and breathed out a single word.

"Perfect."

* * *

 **A/N**

 **So unfortunately this story will be taking a break, I found I was writing the chapters too close together and need to take some time to decided exactly what I want to do for the story as a whole. I do have some plans for the story such as an ending and some characters who will play big roles later but for right now I just need to take some time away and reevaluate a little. My apologise to anyone who keeps up with this story.**


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